We were talking about their need to upgrade their onboarding, and she was describing her concerns about the effects of a poorly executed process.

While she listed the typically cited negative costs of sloppy onboarding — increased turnover, longer time to productivity, etc. — she hit on one of the biggest prices employers pay for a shoddy, sink or swim, unwelcoming onboarding process:

You take someone who is initially excited and even starry-eyed about working for you, and rapidly turn them into a cynical, skeptical, eye-roller, who does not respect or trust management and their employer.

I experienced this harsh reality with the one and only corporate employer I worked for. I remember wondering why my new co-workers would roll their eyes whenever we got a directive from management and say “That’s insert name of insurance company here for yah.”

It didn’t take me too many weeks to realize where this cynical attitude came from.

I can still remember like it was yesterday — sitting in on the employee orientation program I was hired to overhaul. I watched with dismay as new call center reps were driven into a coma by an unrelenting data dump with not a single inspirational component that signaled:

“You just joined a great company and will be doing important work. Welcome aboard!”

The only respite came in the form of someone from human resources, safety, or some other department barging in unannounced to have the new hires fill out paperwork.

Then there was my own orientation, which included the obligatory sexual harassment video, along with the obligatory scenario of the HR person discovering that someone had taken the video player, making calls to track it down, while we waited … and waited.

I probably wasn’t the only one who wondered “Is this the norm for how this place runs? Is this what it’s going to be like working here?”

You’ve had your own version of this, I’m sure.

First Impressions Last

Remember the old saying “You don’t get a second chance at a first impression?”

Just as job applicants are admonished to remember this for good reason, so should employers.

First impressions matter because they shape how everything that you say or do after that impression is perceived. One of the many experiments showing how an initial impressions can color future impressions involved two speakers, both confederates of the experimenter.

Speaker A fumbled the beginning of his presentation, but finished off strong, while Speaker B demonstrated the reverse trajectory. His opening was fantastic, but the rest of his speech was downhill from there. The one who started out clumsily was judged worse than the one who started out great and got worse as his speech continued. No matter how good the rest of his presentation, the negative initial impression of Speaker A colored the respondent’s impression of everything that followed.

What Perception Will They Take Away From the Experience?

When it comes to your new hires, impressions made by their early onboarding experiences will create a mindset that will shape how they perceive future experiences. That’s why you need to pay close attention to what impressions you create with each onboarding moment of truth.

You do that by asking this question:

What perceptual takeaway are we creating in this moment of truth … and is it a good one?”

So for instance, when our call center reps spent their first day in a disorganized data dump that was techno-centric and administrivia-intensive, new employees probably took away from the experience these perceptions:

“That was boring … I wonder if my job is going to be this boring?”

“That was bogus. Are they this clueless in general?”

“If my job is going to be like this, this isn’t going to be a very fun ride.”

In New Situations People Tend to Leap to Conclusions and Overgeneralize

When we enter new territory, we look for clues that might give us greater understanding of what we’re dealing with.

Think of when you have been a new employee. Weren’t you on the lookout for clues about these things?

1. Organizational norms — codes of behaviors, how things are done, how to dress, etc.
2. Where on the mediocrity/excellence continuum employee performance was expected to be.
3. What your new boss was like.
4. Whether leadership valued and respected employees.
5. Whether this was going to be “just a job” or an exciting adventure.

Humans are hardwired with the need to make the unknown known. It makes us feel more secure, more in control. This need translates into a natural tendency to look for patterns — even when they’re not there. It also translates into the human tendency to jump to conclusions and overgeneralize when given even the smallest scrap of information in a new situation.

“The brain is incredibly adept at picking up subtle cues,” says Daryl Travis, Founder and CEO of Brandtrust, a firm that helps companies communicate their brand promise.

Because the human brain is a “pattern making machine,” notes Travis: “That first exposure (to a new employer) is huge, that’s when the first mental models (about one’s new employer) are created.”

Seemingly Little Things Take On Exaggerated Importance In New—and Important—Situations

For an example of a new employee’s pattern-making brain and meaning-making mind in action, consider the following commentary of a new manager, describing his first day working for his Fortune 500 employer. His comment describes his reaction to discovering on Day 1 that the event, which was supposed to be the highlight of his first day, wasn’t going to happen:

What did it mean to me? It meant they were unprepared; and if they’re not ready for me to come in on my first day, what else are they not ready for? This is something they knew about eight weeks in advance. I committed a career shift and went to a company that isn’t even sure about this minor detail? If that was uncertain on my first day, what else am I going to deal with here?

He then went on to say that his department had two welcome lunches for new team members, one for him and one for another team member.

He remembered wondering why they didn’t coordinate the two lunches and have one welcome lunch, rather than create this weird “Which new teammate do I welcome?” situation.

You have to look at it through the new hire’s eyes. They’re thinking: ‘I’m seeing inconsistency and confusion, here.’ One of my future direct reports didn’t sit at my table. That sends a signal. Why would they have created that environment? That doesn’t make sense …. As a new employee, you’re trying to piece things together and figure out the norm. You (the employer) have to pay attention to the signals you’re sending.

As he reflected on the various Day 1 experiences that created confusion, disappointment, and awkwardness, he captures perfectly why it’s important to design a great first impression:

It’s not that these are major things, but when you’re new, your senses are peaked. You are searching all these clues to define the norm. So negatives take on bigger weight.

Notice that “little things” made a huge difference. That speaks to the importance of putting your onboarding process under a microscope, and applying greater mindfulness to the new employee experiences you create. You want to develop greater mindfulness for the perceptual takeaway each onboarding moment of truth creates in your new employees. Doing so will prevent the common decline in morale and motivation new employees often experience when the reality of their new workplace sets in. Consciously creating positive perceptual takeaways will also increase the respect and trust your employees have in management and the decisions management makes… resulting in a workforce that is far more enjoyable to lead, and far more capable of greatness.

So Now What?

Show this article to the new employees you have hired in the last 6-9 months and ask them for feedback about your onboarding process.

Ask them about what perceptions your onboarding process created for them — and why. Ask specifically about impressions they had about:

1. How well your organization is run.
2. How competent management is.
3. How much management cares about employees.
4. Whether employees get the chance to do great things, a chance to matter.
5. How high your standards are.

Make sure you interview new hires from different timeframes, as it is easy for someone who has been on the job for nine months to forget important details that could help you upgrade the “First Day On The Job Experience,” the “First Week on The Job Experience,” etc.

As you redesign each step of each process in the onboarding experience, ask:

1. “What’s the perceptual takeaway here?”
2. “What perception would this leave the new employee with?”
3. “What perceptions would I live to create?”
4. “How could we create such a perceptual takeaway?”

In a future article, we will explore a powerful tool for answering these and other onboarding redesign questions with even greater precision.

It’s a mistake you want to ask yourself if you’re making.

The story speaks to how often employers waste time, money, and creative horsepower when it comes to attracting and retaining talent because they put their attention in the wrong place.

So here’s the story … 

Years ago a friend of mine was telling me how much he loved his Audi. In the same “I love my Audi” story, he mentioned that he will never buy another one again … ever. Before I could ask how Statement A leads to Statement B, he told me that the one and only Audi dealer in the area was a nightmare to deal with. The car-buying experience felt sleazy and the service experience after the sale continued to be a horror show.

He then went on to tell me about another customer of he had met. That customer had brought his car to a dealership out of state for the very same reason my friend disliked this particular dealership.

I knew the name of the dealership, but never had an opinion of them prior to his story.

Fast forward two weeks.

I hear this dealership’s ad on the radio. It is incredibly creative and clever.

When it’s over, I think:

“Isn’t this classic. They spend all this money and creativity coming up with clever ways to get people through the door, only to drive them back out the door by the experience they deliver.”

Since I love analogies and tend to see them everywhere, I then found myself thinking:

“Isn’t this a perfect analogy for what employers do? They spend all kinds of time and money trying to get the best and brightest through their doors, only to drive them back out — or drive them crazy — by the frustrating, disrespectful, and spirit-crushing work experience they deliver.”

Wouldn’t it make sense to invest just as much time, money, and creative horsepower delivering the work experience you promise as you do making a compelling promise to job prospects?

Doesn’t it make sense to invest as much in making sure talent stays once they come through the door, rather than creating a revolving door experience?

Doesn’t it make sense to create a work experience that makes your employees not only happy to stay, but also want to tell their talented friends: “This is an awesome place to work. When there’s an opening, I’ll let you know”?

Think of how much money you could help your employer save in recruiting costs if you helped them create a work experience that turned your employees into a volunteer recruiting firm.

If all this makes sense to you, here’s what you can do about it.

Share this article with your leadership team and suggest that you, as a team, examine:

• Whether you truly deliver the work experience your recruiting campaign promises.
• Whether you really know what kind of work experience you deliver.
• Whether you truly understand the key components of an inspiring, commitment-generating work experience … and how to deliver them.
• Whether your managers know how to manage in ways that inspire loyalty, passion, and pride.
• How much you are investing in telling the world you are a great place to work, and how much you are investing in actually being a great place to work.
• If you are doing the things Todd described in the comment here that are the things that make a workplace a good workplace: appreciation, interesting work, the chance to make a difference, opportunities for new skills, work/life balance, recognition, flexibility, health and retirement benefits, nice co-workers, smart co-workers, good managers but not micromanagers, training, a good location, money, promotions, and raises.

Share this article with your employees as a conversation starter. Find out from them whether they would recommend you as an employer, and why … or why not. Don’t just do this as a survey. I have found over the years that interviews and focus groups provide much richer, more actionable information. I don’t recommend replacing surveys with them, but combining the two.

Invest in helping your managers learn:

• What key practices create an inspiring work experience where employees feel not only valued and respected, but they also have the resources, support, and training to do great work.
• What key human needs drive employee performance and engagement, and how to create a work experience that satisfies these human needs. Here are just a few: the need for meaning and purpose, the need to learn and grow, and the need to feel a sense of control over one’s experience.
• How to become more mindful of critical Managerial Moments of Truth that affect employee engagement and morale. Examples of such critical Managerial Moments of Truth include: 1) Onboarding a new employee, and whether it’s a “sink or swim” experience or new hires get the message: “We’re glad you’re here, here’s how we are going to help you succeed”; 2) Giving employees feedback and doing performance reviews; 3) Communicating to employees about major changes; 4) How you ask employees for input, and what you do with that input.
• The critical communication skills that make it comfortable for people with less power — i.e. their direct reports — to speak honestly and openly about difficult issues.
• The myriad of other skills and the managerial practices that bring out the best in employees.

If you are serious about not just getting talent “through the door,” but also keeping them and bringing out the best in them, forward this article to your management team and your direct reports, and get the process rolling.

HR and talent management leaders are constantly striving to become more strategic. But more often than not it seems that when they are presented with a strategic alternative that really breaks new ground, they retreat and stick with the status quo. However, if you are serious about making a strategic impact and you take a minute to reflect, it’s hard to think of many things that could have more of a strategic impact than increasing corporate revenues.

This is because increasing revenue or “topline growth” is on every CEO’s agenda and it is also almost always a top corporate goal and an executive success measure.

Other business functions like marketing, sales, supply chain, and product development have become corporate heroes (and are richly budgeted as a result) because they have demonstrated that they have a direct and measurable impact on this critical strategic goal.

HR has historically focused exclusively on cost cutting, but realize that increasing revenue is a far superior goal. That is because almost anyone can cut costs using an arbitrary number. However, in order to generate more revenue in the marketplace from your customers, you must meet a much higher standard, which requires that you be competitive in every aspect of the business.

Now if you are an HR traditionalist or someone who is happy to maintain HR’s status as a service/overhead function, you are probably already thinking that a strategic goal to impact revenue is a ridiculous idea. However, you would be wrong. We know that HR can directly increase revenues because several firms have already succeeded in demonstrating to their CFOs that they could directly increase revenue. At least take a minute and look at a quick example where HR has increased revenue.

Think it’s not possible? Here is a quick example to demonstrate the possibilities.

It’s obvious that average salespeople produce revenue and good salespeople produce more. So in an attempt to hire better salespeople, this technology firm analyzed its current sales hiring process and reengineered it, so that it measurably identified and hired better salespeople.

If the new process hired salespeople that sold on average 10% more (than those hired under the previous recruiting process), you could (with the CFO’s blessing), publicly state that this HR action had improved sales revenue by X dollars (i.e. the actual amount would be the 10% improvement in the average salesperson’s yearly sales revenue, multiplied by the number of new salespeople who were hired under the improved process).

Still skeptical? Here is another quick example of how HR can increase revenue.

The recruiting function at this Midwest bank realized it was losing significant revenue every day that a loan officer position was vacant. Obviously, with no one in the position, you can’t make or close any revenue-generating loans. In order to reduce the number of days that loan officer positions were vacant, it called on recruiting to apply its speed-hiring techniques on these positions.

By speeding up the requisition process, placing the best recruiters on these positions and identifying and eliminating “deadtime” throughout the hiring process, it cut the number of vacancy days nearly in half. At $5,000 per eliminated vacancy day, over dozens of requisitions, it increased the bank’s revenue by millions. Everyone from the CFO on down agreed that HR had substantially increased revenue. If these two brief examples are not enough for you, the next section contains the top 15 HR actions that can lead to increased corporate revenue.

The Top 15 Talent Management Actions With the Highest Impact on Revenue

Even if you’re not ready to implement an HR-wide coordinated “revenue impact strategy,” realize that there are many independent actions that the functions within talent management can take in order to increase organizational revenue. If you’re looking for some “low-hanging fruit” actions to take, here are some to consider (those with the potential for producing the most revenue impact listed first).

1. Prioritize revenue-generating business units, jobs, and employees — the highest impact and the lowest cost action is prioritization. HR needs to work with executives, the CFO, and risk management to identify and then prioritize the specific business units that generate the most revenue. You should also identify the highest revenue-generating jobs and employees. Next, you must also identify revenue “impact” jobs, which are jobs that don’t directly generate revenue but the actions of the employees in the jobs directly “influence” the likelihood of subsequent revenue generation. You should also identify revenue “impact” functions (note that product development and customer service are often the highest revenue-impact functions). Finally, you should identify and prioritize jobs where a major error would significantly decrease revenues or increase costs. Obviously after setting your priorities, you need to develop processes that ensure that the most HR resources and the best HR personnel are allocated to those priorities.
2. Targeted recruiting from competitors — recruiting talent away from your direct competitors has a high ROI, because if you are successful, your revenues will go up and theirs will go down. Start by “mapping” the revenue-generating talent at your competitors. Next, recruit away the top sales manager or exceptional salespeople from your competitors. Once you land a “magnet” individual, others are likely to follow. Other high-impact targets for your recruiting from competitors might include innovators, game-changers, pioneers, and individuals with expertise in monetizing products and services.
3. Retain revenue producers — retention has a high ROI because most of the factors that cause top revenue generators to leave are not related to their pay. Interview the most successful revenue producers and those who significantly impact revenue. During the interview, identify the factors that currently frustrate them, as well at the factors that would make their job a dream job. Put together a personalized retention plan to minimize the negatives and to increase the positives.
4. Hire revenue producers — external hiring brings in individuals with a proven track record for generating revenue. External hires also bring with them revenue-generating ideas. Focus your employer branding and recruiting processes on revenue-generating jobs. Reengineer the process so that it leads the industry in its ability to identify, attract, and hire individuals with a superior revenue-generating track record. For example, a major mobile phone network provider found that by adding an online testing component to its hiring process , the resulting call center rep that were hired produced over 10% more revenue than the untested hires.
5. Training on how to increase revenue — revenue generation and the related skills that support it must become a key corporate competency. The T&D function must target its offerings so that they cover all aspects of revenue generation. The quality of the offerings must also be improved, so that individuals show at least a 10% improvement in revenue generation after returning to their jobs after completing the T&D programs. In addition to targeting revenue-generating employees, revenue impact learning modules need to be developed so that every employee (regardless of their position) can understand the concept and subsequently improve their support of revenue-generating employees and business units. In this light, Wal-Mart routinely makes it a part of pre-shift store meetings to make all employees aware of which specific products produce the highest margins and revenue. This awareness allows employees to focus their sales and customer service efforts.
6. Identify barriers — HR must proactively use surveys, interviews, and metrics to forecast upcoming revenue-generating problems and opportunities. HR must also have a process for rapidly identifying current problems and the barriers that restrict revenue generation.
7. Create a fast-reaction team — HR must put together a team of specialists that can respond rapidly to the identified revenue problems that occur anywhere in your organization. Team members should excel at discovering HR related “root causes” and have the skills and experience necessary to solve sudden revenue generation problems.
8. Leadership development and succession must focus on revenue-related competencies – revenue generators also need to be effectively led and managed. So as a result, the leadership function needs to make revenue generation a key competency and development area for leaders. The ability to increase the revenue impact of their team should also be added as a key criterion for promoting managers and leaders.
9. Proactive internal movement — employees and contingent workers need to be proactively placed into the “right jobs” where they can have the highest possible revenue impact. The initial placement of top revenue producers needs to be regularly re-assessed so that key individuals (and even teams) are redeployed to the needed business areas. Seasonal and business cycle rotations may also be required to ensure that there is no excessive idleness among revenue generators.
10. Identify those who support revenue producers — once a year, survey your top revenue producers and ask them which individuals or support positions have directly helped/contributed to their revenue production. Make sure that these impactful support personnel are rewarded and recognized.
11. Release poor performers quickly – the performance management process must be redesigned so that it focuses on rapidly identifying, fixing, and releasing employees who fail to meet their revenue or revenue impact goals. The recruiting function should also continuously be on the lookout for top-performing talent that can be “swapped” with these lower-performing current employees.
12. Implement revenue-impact metrics and rewards – work with the COO, the CFO, and performance management to develop a process and a set of metrics that accurately assess an individual’s revenue generation and revenue impact. Rewards and recognition programs must also be focused and reengineered to better encourage revenue generation.
13. Onboarding — even the onboarding process can impact revenue generation if a weak process means that new-hires get up to speed slowly. As a result, the onboarding process must be reengineered so that new-hires on the first day clearly understand the importance of revenue generation, no matter what job they have. They also need to be informed about how their revenue generation/impact will be measured and rewarded. And finally they need to be educated as to where they can go to get help in this area.
14. Contingent workers and vendors must be included — because a significant percentage of the “workforce” are not technically employees, HR must also work to ensure that contingent workers are hired and evaluated based on their ability to impact revenue. HR should work with purchasing to ensure that vendors, contractors, and consultants are also all capable of increasing revenues.
15. Generate a direct profit — the least ambiguous of any HR action is directly generating revenue from external activities. Firms like Disney, HealthEast, Southwest, and Wachovia have generated revenue as a result of offering their HR services externally in areas including training, temp services, building a culture, and executive recruiting.

The Benchmark Firm to Copy

In addition to the 15 examples that were provided above, you should also know that the HR function at Google is the world’s leader in operationalizing a business-impact strategic approach. HR leaders at Google consistently use metrics and mathematical algorithms to scientifically improve business performance from programs like hiring, retention, and leadership. HR leaders can tell you the revenue impact of people management offerings like 20% time, free food, workspace design, and collaboration practices. They can also easily show you which business units (i.e. Adwords) have the most impact on revenue.

Understanding the five key components of a “revenue focused” HR strategy.

If you decide to implement this revenue-focus strategy, be aware that there are five key components that make a “revenue-focused” HR strategy successful.

Collaboration with the CFO — the first component is collaboration with the CFO. HR leadership must work directly with the CFO’s office (who is the undisputed “king” of measuring revenue). Together they must develop a credible process for proving when an action has a revenue impact and what the value of that impact actually is. Next, HR can provide the CFO’s office with a list of its intended actions and then finance can help to sort out any on the list that simply wouldn’t be credible no matter what the data said (i.e. an example of an action that might be sorting out as not credible could be the premise that hiring and retaining better janitors would increase revenues).

Make it an HR goal — the second component of the strategy is goal setting by making “impacting revenue” a major HR and talent management goal. As a major HR goal, it would need to be part of every HR function’s execution plan. The importance of the goal would be reinforced by adding revenue impact to the HR reward and metric structure. Together these actions would help to get everyone in HR to focus on this goal.

Prioritization — the third component is prioritization. If you start with the assumption that there will be no additional budget at least initially for this strategy,focus and concentrate your current HR budget and your best HR people on the business units, the jobs, and the employees that have the most impact on increasing revenue. Instead of equal treatment or first-come first-serve, high-priority jobs and employees would be serviced first. Resources would also be channeled toward the HR programs and processes which proved to have the most success on increasing revenue (i.e. usually they are hiring, retention, training, metrics, and rewards).

A process for identifying problems and barriers — the fourth component of the strategy involves identifying barriers to prohibit revenue from increasing. By applying benchmarking, research, and analyzing metrics, HR can determine which “people management problems” or barriers are having the most impact on reducing revenues. (Examples of problems include extended position vacancies in revenue-generating jobs, high turnover among top salespeople, salespeople unwilling to attend sales training etc.). The same effort should be put into identifying “positive people management opportunities” that when taken advantage of, directly increase revenues.

Best-practice sharing – the final strategy component is best-practice identification and sharing. Under this component, HR uses research, benchmarking, and metrics to proactively identify and then rapidly spread the implementation of the most effective revenue improving “people management practices” to all managers throughout the organization.

Final Thoughts

If you are still skeptical about this strategy and approach, ask your CEO whether they would prefer that you hire great clerks versus great salespeople. Also ask them if they would prefer that HR excel at low hiring costs, hiring without fewer legal issues, or would they instead prefer you to hire innovators and individuals who can increase revenues by 10 to 20%?

Although the initial concept might seem daunting, a number of advanced HR departments have been using a piecemeal approach to increasing corporate revenue for years. If you’re HR department were to adopt “revenue impact” as a primary HR strategy, the net impact for even a medium-sized firm would literally be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If you implemented the strategy, not only would you “have a seat at the table” but you would be listened to and respected because you successfully made the transformation from “overhead function” to a strategic contributor. Your work would be noted in the annual report, so even the shareholders would become aware of the major contribution that HR made.

And incidentally, if you like this strategy, you should also consider related HR strategies. Where instead of focusing on revenue, the strategy would focus on increasing quality, speed/agility, customer service or innovation throughout the organization as a result of HR actions.

And one final question … Did this article succeed in expanding your thinking?

Every recruiting leader wants top candidates, but the standard approach used by most recruiters simply doesn’t work. A more precise data-driven approach that leverages complete understanding of the attraction factors can give you a competitive edge. Market research can reveal:

1. What it would take for top talent to look at and consider your firm/jobs;
2. What are the best information channels influence to top talent;
3. What is required to “trigger them” to apply; and
4. What expectations have to be met before they will accept a job.

Implementing a Recruiting Market Research Effort

Building a market research function isn’t rocket science, but there are certain action steps you should consider when getting started, including:

1. Partner with existing market research and product marketing functions within the business to learn about their best practices and tools they may be able to grant you access to. (Don’t forget to inquire about ongoing coaching and advice as well.)
2. Recruiting someone with marketing research knowledge and experience to run the effort. This is one of those cases where training a subject matter expert the intricacies of recruiting would be less resource-exhausting than training a recruiter how to be a market research expert.
3. Put together a strong business case for additional program funding (it’s unlikely you have enough surplus in your existing budget). Work with the CFO’s office to ensure that the benefits targeted are credible and that your approach for proving ROI is airtight.
4. Decide what information you need to inform your efforts, and what types of data could be analyzed to provide that information.
5. Develop a long list of possible data sources that could provide the data needed to develop the information for each of the key talent segments your function must recruit for. Commonly overlooked sources include desirable individuals who would not consider your firm, current top prospects, current or past candidates, and new hires.
6. Test the accuracy, reliability, suitability of format and cost to obtain of each data source, prioritizing and selecting those providing the optimal mix.
7. Design a simple method to collect, collate, categorize, analyze, and tag the data that will power your effort.
8. Determine how you will make information actionable by identifying not only how the information produced from your analysis will be communicated, but also how it will be embedded in core processes.

The Top 10 Subjects on Which Information Is Needed

The job search process — you must understand how top talent goes about looking for an opportunity. Identify the specific steps they take and the timeline that they follow when considering a job change. Also identify who they consult with throughout the process.

Identify channels of influence/communication – use surveys or focus groups to identify specifically where top talent source their information from and spend a great deal of time. You should learn about how top prospects use:

• Social media — what social media sites do they frequent (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Yelp, Twitter, etc.) Would a jobs-related message there excite them or turn them off?
• Internet/Mobile — how they use the Internet, both from the desktop and from mobile devices. What online outposts do they visit most frequently? What blogs do they read and what RSS feeds do they subscribe to? Do they listen to podcasts? What electronic forums/chat rooms do they frequent?
• Media — what magazines, publications, journals or newspapers do they read, either the paper or online version? What radio or TV programs do they tune into? Would they read an ad or must a mention be within the narrative content?
• Message preference — what type of messages will they read, ignore, or reject (i.e. electronic e-mail, text, video, tweets, Facebook posts, voice or even snail mail)? Under what conditions would they return a direct message from an unknown recruiter?
• Job sites — what job feeds do they use and what job boards (if any) do they visit frequently looking for a job? On what sites do they post their resumes? What must a job post description contain to get them excited?
• Corporate career sites — what does it take to get them to visit a corporate career/ jobs site? What factors will cause them to drop out before applying?
• Professional association/trade events — what organizations do they join and what meetings do they attend (professional or social)? Would they ever attend a job fair?
• Employer rating sites — what employee rating or rant sites do they visit? Does the information change their job search? (Glassdoor, Jobitorial, etc.)
• Videos — where do they view videos (i.e. YouTube or Flickr)?
• Talent competitors — what firms do the target candidates consider during their job search? Which firms do they finally select?

Identify the message that is required to get their initial attention — use your research to identify what a message must look like and contain to ensure that a quick glance at it will get your target’s immediate attention. After developing some sample messages, use a focus group to pre-test them.

Identify what excites top prospects about a job or company — to refine your messaging you must identify what factors about an industry, company, or job excite your target audience enough to drive them to apply, i.e. high pay, job security, interesting work, a green environment, a great location, an opportunity to learn, etc.)

Identify possible “turnoffs” — in addition to understanding factors that excite, you must also identify the factors that are turnoffs. Because you cannot control the information available on the Internet, you must first find out what negatives about your firm and jobs are easy to find, and develop/test “countering messages” to make sure they successfully overcome published negatives.

For not-looking prospects, identify what it takes to get them to enter the job-search process — if you don’t know already, currently employed individuals who are “not active lookers” cannot be attracted using active approaches. If you are targeting individuals who are not actively seeking jobs, it is critical that you identify the specific “triggers” that would excite them enough to enter into job search mode.

Identify the factors that cause top prospects to take the time to apply — it takes a lot more to get a top prospect or a non-job-looker to take the time required to apply for a job. As a result, your research must identify the drivers or factors that will overcome their natural resistance to applying for a job. Once you identify those factors, prepare and pretest your messages to ensure that they drive candidates to take desirable recruiting actions like visiting your website, applying for a position, or making a call to a recruiter.

Identify the best ways to identify potential referrals — because employee referrals produce such a high volume and improved quality of candidate, use your market research tools to identify the best approaches for identifying and selling referrals. Provide that information to your employees so that they can target their referral efforts.

For active candidates, identify where they see job information — although it takes less work to get active candidates to apply, the very best actives have numerous firms in mind. As a result, use your research methods to identify the specific places and locations where your top “active prospects” would likely see and read an announcement of either an open position or a recruiting-related event. You should also consider putting an identifying code, phone number, or unique web address in each message in order to allow you to later identify which ones actually drew the most interest.

Don’t forget follow-up market research — in order to ensure that you “got it right” and to continually improve, gather follow-up source and influence information from a sample of applicants, candidates, and finalists. In addition, always ask new hires during onboarding what factors attracted them, caused them to say yes, and what factors almost caused them to say no. Use this information to refine both your market research and your recruiting process.

Final Thoughts

Recruiting leaders can learn a lot from competitive fishermen. You cannot even begin to be a mediocre competitive angler without fully understanding the interests, locations, habits and feeding routines of your target — i.e. the trophy fish. You can of course use intuition or luck, but the best competitive fishermen have long ago shifted to the scientific approach, which includes depth finders, temperature gauges, and electronic fish finders.

In the same light, recruiting must move away from traditional unstructured trial-and-error approaches and instead shift toward more scientific and data-driven research approaches. If you are among the majority of recruiting leaders who have hiring managers continually complaining that they are not seeing top candidates, your lack of market research and not “fully understanding your prospects/candidates” may be to blame. As the job-search process becomes more complex and global, you may soon find that there is no alternative other than adopting a market research model in the recruiting function. Don’t wait too long. There simply won’t be time to catch up.

1. Not having an onboarding program. When salespeople aren’t performing, few trace the issue back to how the salesperson was assimilated into the organization. Yet, that is oftentimes the foundation of the problem. Salespeople arrive at a company with potential. The onboarding program should be designed to ensure the potential becomes a reality.
2. Not having onboarding objectives. Many, once they recognize the prudence of having an onboarding program, start by creating content. If you start by creating content, how will you know your program is designed to position your salesperson for success? The onboarding starting point is the end. Document the expectations you have of those who successfully complete your onboarding program and create content that leads to those expectations being met.
3. Having an onboarding program. This may seem like circular logic given the first two points. The issue is the word “an” and thinking of onboarding in the singular form. You may hire from within the industry, outside of the industry, transfer an employee to the sales team, or hire someone just out of school. Each of these backgrounds requires a unique onboarding experience. The expectations of those who successfully complete onboarding doesn’t change, just the path to ensure they are met.
4. Turning on the fire hose. We would all love for the new salespeople to be able to effectively sell for us yesterday, but that’s not realistic. Plus, they don’t need to know everything on day one or even week one. Identify when proficiency is required in their tenure and structure the program accordingly. Keep the pace such that the knowledge and skills are retained.
5. Not assessing proficiency. You put your salesperson through a glorious onboarding experience and then send them off to sell. Something is missing: proficiency assessment! At the end of onboarding, have an assessment program that gives the new salespeople the opportunity to show their stuff. This can come in the form of a written exam, simulated sales call or group presentation, and/or a CRM practical. The end of onboarding is a key milestone to ensure your new salesperson is positioned for success.
6. Not soliciting feedback. Onboarding can always be improved. At the end of onboarding, conduct participant surveys so you get the information you need to continually enhance the programs.

Turn these six mistakes into your competitive advantage. Top-performing companies don’t think of adding headcount to the sales team as hiring. They see it as an investment in revenue. Use onboarding as your strategy to protect the investment and ensure a high rate of return.

The Apple store in London

This past August Apple became the most valuable corporation in the world based on market capitalization, surpassing every firm in the technology industry and every other industry! As a consumer products company, its prolonged growth spurt is even more amazing because it has continued through economic times when consumers are reluctant to spend what little they have. Considering that Apple was near bankruptcy in 1997, its story is both extraordinary and noteworthy.

The extraordinary valuation is not a result of 30+ years of stellar performance. Apple has failed at many things. Its success isn’t the result of access to special equipment, manufacturing capability, or a great location, but rather superior leadership, access to great talent, and unusual talent management approaches.

Almost everyone in business is aware of Apple’s amazing product success and the extraordinary leadership of Steve Jobs. Some authors have described the firm’s approach to HR, but few have analyzed the firm close enough to identify why the approaches work. Visits to the headquarters and interviews with HR leaders convinced me that there are lessons to be learned from this company. After two decades of researching and analyzing Apple’s approach to talent management, I have compiled a list of the key differentiators.

If you are a manager at another organization and you want to duplicate its results, this case study will give you direction.

Apple Talent Management Approaches to Emulate

This three-part case study covers the many talent management factors that contributed to Apple’s extraordinary success in workforce productivity and innovation. It does not focus on the many important things that Steve Jobs did at Apple, because such things are not easily copied by others. It also focuses primarily on the approaches used within Apple’s corporate facilities versus those of Apple’s retail operations.

Agility Allows for Innovation into Completely New Areas

Many firms develop the capability to dominate their industry. Procter & Gamble, Intel, and Toyota are excellent examples. Apple is in a different league, however, because it has demonstrated the ability to shift into and dominate completely new industries every few years. For most of its history, Apple was a computer company (and its name used to be Apple Computer), but in the last decade Apple tackled the music industry with the iPod device and iTunes distribution channel. Next Apple conquered and dominated the smartphone industry with the iPhone and “App Store.” Most recently Apple challenged the PC as we know it and is in the process of disrupting the publishing industry. This ability to successfully shift from one industry to another in a few short years is known as agility. In my book, even wildly successful firms like Google, Facebook, Toyota, or Procter & Gamble can’t come close to matching Apple’s agility track record.

A great deal of Apple’s agility comes from the direction and vision of its senior leadership and its corporate culture, which reinforces the need to get ready for “the next big thing.” While Apple looks for agility in talent, the real key to Apple’s agility occurs post onboarding. At Apple, there is a cultural expectation that after succeeding in one task, you will immediately move on to something completely different. You know that you will have to retool and learn quickly. The expectation of radical change eliminates resistance and sends a message that employees can’t rest on their laurels. That means that they must mentally prepare for (and even look forward to) the next extraordinary challenge, even though you will get almost no “career path” help in determining which is the next best challenge for you. Apple employees work in numerous disconnected team silos, competing against one another with little or no foresight into the purpose or intended use date of their work.

The rapidly shifting work load means than an employee bored with their work won’t be for long because the work and the focus will change, a major attraction factor that brings in recruits desiring the challenge of radical change. Looking at the big picture, Apple’s ability to move into and dominate completely unrelated industries is only possible because of its extraordinary talent, the way that it manages it, and its approach to building an image that attracts the new skills needed to successfully move into completely new product areas.

A “Lean” Talent Management Approach Contributes to Extraordinary Productivity

Most firms strive to have a productive workforce. One of the best ways to measure workforce productivity is revenue per employee. Apple produces what can only be considered extraordinary revenue per employee; $2 million. A second measure of workforce productivity is profit per employee: nearly $478,000 for Apple (unbelievable considering it has a retail workforce).

If you are familiar with the concept of lean management, then you’ll understand the prime drivers for Apple’s extraordinary employee productivity. For years, the leadership of Apple has followed the philosophy that having less is more, meaning that by purposely understaffing and operating with reduced funding, you can make the team more productive and innovative.

Innovation at most firms is expensive because you must pay for a lot of trial and error. The lean approach, however, can improve innovation because with everything being tried, there simply isn’t enough time or money for major misses and re-do’s. “Unrealistic deadlines” at Apple mean that you have to get project problems solved early on, because there isn’t time to redo things over and over. Being lean forces the team to be more cohesive. Even providing a lean schedule forces everyone to be productive because they know there is no room for slippage. At Apple, the lean approach means that even with its huge cash resources, every employee must adopt the mentality of leanness. If you understand the lean concept and its advantages, you shouldn’t be surprised that numerous innovations have been developed in “garages,” the ultimate lean environment.

Build and Reinforce a Performance Culture

Any business analysis of Apple will reveal its laser focus on producing industry-leading results. While some feel the performance emphasis comes solely from Steve Jobs, the “performance culture” is continually reinforced by operational processes and practices. For example, having stock as a primary motivator forces employees to focus on the performance of the company and its stock. The rewards and recognition programs at Apple don’t include a component for effort or trying — only final results. Rather than celebrating numerous product milestones, only the final product unveiling is worthy of a major celebration.

A performance culture requires significant differentiation based on performance, and it’s clear that in this culture, the top performers and those who are working on mission-critical products are treated significantly differently. In fact, current and former employees frequently complained about the special treatment given to those designated as the “top 100 most important employees.”

Treating top performers differently may cause some employees to be disgruntled, but treating all employees exactly the same will frustrate your high-impact top performers and cause them to leave. Functions receive different funding also, based on their potential impact. Overhead functions that don’t directly produce product (i.e. HR) are often underfunded compared to product producing functions like engineering and product design.

Although there is certainly politics at Apple (where marketing seems to rule), having a degree from a prestigious school or past success on other products won’t get you far in the highly competitive culture at Apple. Jobs has no degree at all. The internal competition is fierce (even though they don’t know what other teams are doing) to develop or contribute to the most-talked about feature for the next WOW product.

Rather Than a Work/Life Balance, Emphasize the Work

Numerous HR functions proudly and prominently push work/life balance. Like them, Apple is proud of its long-established culture. You won’t find the term “balance” anywhere on the career site; instead, Apple makes it clear it is looking for extremely hard-working and committed individuals. On the website, for example, it proudly states: “This isn’t your cushy corporate nine-to-fiver.” It reinforces the “hard work” message several times, including “Making it all happen can be hard work. And you could probably find an easier job someplace else. But that’s not the point, is it?

And: “We also have a shared obsession with getting every last detail right. So leave your neckties, bring your ideas.”

If you don’t care about getting every precise detail perfect, great work, and a lot of it, Apple makes it crystal clear that this is not the place for you.

Next week: Part 2 — more talent management approaches to copy and learn from.

But as I examined some of my other supervisors, I devised a list, or manager playbook of rookie mistakes that I vowed never to repeat. Below I’ll walk through some of the things I have seen personally. The stories you are about to read are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Alienating yourself from the team. Whether you’ve been hired externally to come in and take over an established group or been promoted from within, first impressions are key and they will follow you forever.

I had a manager — let’s call her Claire — who despite several invitations to come sit in the recruiting pit with her team to get to know us better, declined, only later to say that we were too “clicky.” New management will always cause fear and curiosity on the team. Connect with them as soon as possible so that you establish yourself as someone who they can approach and trust. If you don’t fully understand what they’re day-to day activities are, how you are going to be able to make suggestions on how to improve processes? The best recruiting managers I have worked for have been recruiters, so be prepared to roll up your sleeves and at least during your first couple of weeks, get on the phone, make offers, and share your best practices.

Jumping to conclusions. You might come in and take over a team, and there could be preconceived notions of those team members, whether good, bad, or ugly. Don’t make any rash decisions until you can fully assess each member and make your own judgments. Don’t feel pressured to jump on the bandwagon of what other peers are saying. I worked with a woman — we’ll call her Denise — who during our first team lunch made the comment that she had already selected top performers from her previous company that she was going to be bringing on board. With no current open headcount we were forced to assume that she was planning on cutting us out after only being there for a couple of days.

Even if you have a performance issue on your team, figure out the root of that problem. Nothing screams talented manager like someone who can turn an employee around and remotivate them. Make the effort to spend more one-on-one time with your team so that you can set the stage early that you are there to coach and mentor.

Having an ego. There is a difference between manager and recruiter, and I am not just talking about salary. Typically managers have more access to decision makers and have the ability to drive strategy – that being said, don’t make it something to throw in everyone’s face or something that you own all by yourself. Recruiting is a highly collaborative corporate function where processes and best practices change daily. Make a move in the right direction early by engaging your team in the projects that you’re working on and being transparent about them.

At one company I had a boss who at every meeting would sum up all problems with “I am working with leadership on a strategic plan.” What that plan was, I never knew, nor were I or other members of the team ever asked for our advice or engagement around such plans. Another theme of that supervisor was the good ol’ boys club approach of — I’ll just text our CEO, or I just had drinks with him — we’re best friends. You weren’t hired to start a frat or sorority. Often your team doesn’t have access to the leaders who you might interact with. Impress your team with how you’re driving initiatives forward, not just your relationships. If you are already one step ahead and do engage your team, make sure to praise them for their efforts and never take credit by yourself.

Forcing it. There are two schools of thoughts on this. On one hand you want to gain credibility by coming in with a magic wand and fixing problems. On the other, you really need to take the time to assess what the problems are and how to address them before making any major changes. I had just implemented an ATS at a company, and it was a huge hit with the recruiting team. It was a life saver! Then a new manager came in the picture (Dixie) and she quickly determined that our particular system wouldn’t do. A week later Dixie was still asking elementary questions about how our system worked — odd given that she was on board to change it out so quickly.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. If the current team that you are coming into is raving about certain areas of their work, then it’s best to focus your time on larger issues or roadblocks that are frustrating them. Meet with the team during your first week and create a roadmap of their issues. Take the time to investigate and share with them your plan on improving them.

Writing checks that you can’t cash. This is a pretty universal mistake that I have seen with several managers. They come in and half listen to the problems and assume that the current team either hasn’t been talented enough to fix them or not aggressive enough to get things driven forward.

I had an issue at a company where we couldn’t get movement on our very slow offer approval process; there were some major politics and engagement problems at the executive level. Our new manager, Trudy, came in with the gusto to force the hands of our CEO and CFO and promised us that the approval process would be re-engineered in no time. She was unwilling to accept the advice of the team regarding the underlying politics surrounding our leadership, and how those issues needed to be fixed first before any other changes could be made. Months went by and while the promises continued, the progress did not.

Take advantage of the tenure on your team. These employees are the ones that will know all the dark secrets of a company and can help you either navigate tough situations or give you the information you need to make realistic improvements.

I have used the above list as my guide and I am proud to say that I have been successful in avoiding most those rookie mistakes despite my rookie status in management. I have a team of recruiters that are highly capable, talented, and teach me new things on a daily basis. Not only do we have great camaraderie – we feel comfortable sharing ideas. So while I’ve avoided the obvious mistakes, it would be another mistake altogether to assume I know everything there is to know about management. So managers be warned: I’ll be watching and taking mental notes on what not to do!

V. Program Responsiveness Features

Being responsive to those who refer and the referrals they submit are critical features that drive program loyalty, participation, and engagement.

1. Rapid response to a referral is critical – a lack of responsiveness to employee referrals is the #1 program killer. The best programs set a target of getting feedback to the referrer and the referred individual within 48 – 72 hours of submission (Aricent & AmTrust Bank).
2. Expedited interviewing – some firms make a commitment to decide whether to interview/not interview all referrals within a week. Others make a more narrow commitment, which is to actually schedule an interview with all “A” quality employee referral candidates within a week of receiving their referral (Owens Corning).
3. Referrals must be tagged and the processing expedited – in the best programs, all referral applications are tagged in order to measure program effectiveness. In addition, the tagged referrals are given a priority for processing (i.e. fast tracked). This is necessary in order to ensure that both the employee and the referred individual feel like they are “special” (Accenture).
4. “On the spot” screening – consider developing a process where resumes collected at the referral desk undergo instant screening followed by instant feedback to the employee and the candidate (Tata consultancy).

VI. Communicating with employees and applicants

High-performing referral programs require frequent and effective communications.

1. Personalize and target your communications – broad communications addressed to all employees almost always produce disappointing results. Instead, develop customized or personalized promotions and campaigns. Write personalized e-mails, tweets, or Facebook entries to targeted job families, well-connected individuals, and top performers alerting them to critical needs in their area. Periodically push relevant job openings that require referrals only to the narrow list of appropriate employees (Amazon & CACI International).
2. Provide periodic employee notifications after a referral is made — employees are almost always nervous about whether their referrals were any good and what is going to happen to their colleague. The best practice is to electronically notify employees immediately when their referral is accepted/rejected, if the candidate is invited for an interview and when the candidate is finally hired or rejected.
3. Provide periodic feedback to applicants – prospects who have been referred are also frequently nervous about their chances. At the very least they should be electronically notified that there referral has been received and accepted. These notifications can also include an overview of what they can expect, including the steps in the process, frequently asked questions, and the likely timeframe before any decision is made.
4. Offer an online chat feature with employees – one of the best ways to reach busy and hesitant employees with questions about the ERP is through an online chat feature (Aricent).
5. Develop and use referral champions – a powerful way to inspire employees to refer is to use senior leaders as referral champions. These executive champions should participate in communications and help to explain to employees the importance to the business of the positions being recruited for (Accenture).
6. Consider a follow-up meeting after a great referral – after a great referral, schedule a follow-up meeting with the person. Goals include to hand-deliver the bonus, to thank them (and their manager), to identify and then learn from their approach, and to ask them if they know any other stars. (Amazon).
7. Provide direct feedback to employees on weak referrals — make sure that you provide feedback to individual employees who make weak referrals, so that they know what they did wrong and how to improve.
8. Keep top referral rejects interested – top referrals who were not hired because they lost out to an exceptional candidate should be kept for consideration of future openings. Your goal should be to develop a pool of these potential “future hires” and to build a long-term relationship with them by continually communicating through periodic messages or an e-newsletter. Also “push” future relevant jobs to them. In order to keep them excited, consider telling all A+ rated referrals who were not hired what specifically they could do to improve their chances.
9. 24/7 help desk – large firms with a high volume of referrals can open 24×7 referral help desks to provide information and to answer questions, much like a concierge (Tata and Aricent).

VII. Specialized referral approaches to consider

In addition to providing a broad employee referral program, it is also wise to consider implementing some specialized subprograms.

1. Proactively approaching target employees – most referral programs communicate using a broad impersonal approach; a superior proactive approach involves recruiters seeking out individual employees who have a high likelihood of making a quality referral for a specific job. Employees and managers are usually approached on a one-to-one basis (and often in person) and are asked to provide the names of a handful of individuals who fit a targeted set of criteria. Because the approach is personal and targeted, the response rate and referral quality are significantly higher. When top performers and executives are proactively approached, frequently they are willing only to provide “names” alone, with no follow-up or resume (Google & Aricent)
2. Boomerang referrals – this focused approach emphasizes maintaining a continuous relationship with high-quality former employees (corporate alumni) in the hopes of someday rehiring them through an employee referral. Top corporate alumni can also be asked to provide referrals (Aricent & Booz Allen).
3. Reference referrals – this approach emphasizes approaching the top references of last year’s top hires as referral sources. They are thanked for their helpful reference and asked if they “know anyone else equally as qualified.”
4. College hire referrals – because of their widespread usage of social media, college students are well-connected with other students in their field around the world. College referral programs have proven to produce excellent referrals for both interns and permanent hires. Last year’s graduates who you hired from key schools should also be proactively approached for names (Endeca, Aricent, & Intuit).
5. Onboarding referrals — make it a regular part of onboarding to highlight the employee referral program and to provide new hires with a referral information kit. Also make them aware that you have a recruiting culture and that they are expected to continually provide referrals. Each new hire should be asked to immediately provide top referrals from their former firm. (Aricent & Eli Lily)
6. Referrals for executive positions – because corporate executives are highly visible and accessible in today’s world of social networks, vacant executive positions should also be filled through referrals. In order to be successful, the executive referrals component requires an extremely high level of customer service and candidate experience. These “choose-your-own-leader” type programs can empower employees to get better leaders (Aricent).
7. Internal movement referrals – employee referrals can also be an effective tool for improving internal movement. Employees need to be rewarded for making successful referrals for key internal openings and managers must be rewarded for “releasing talent.” An internal recruiting team may also be used to speed up internal placements (Booz Allen, Sodexo, & Microsoft).
8. Offer letter referrals – this extremely aggressive program requires you to ask potential new hires to provide referrals as a condition for becoming an employee (FirstMerit).

VIII. Referral program technology

Globalization of referrals and the requirement for fast processing of applications mandate that programs use the latest in technology, which in this field advances by leaps and bounds.

1. Allow employees to submit using multiple platforms – provide your employees with multiple options for submitting referrals (web, email, phone, text). Providing multiple options can make it easier for busy employees to make referrals 24/7, while they are “on the run.”
2. Application website flexibility – the referral website should offer regular and expedited options. The first channel should provide the detailed information that first-time referrers’ need, but the second channel should be designed for experienced referrers, so that they can quickly jump directly to the referral submission page (Accenture).
3. A website that allows employees to track the progress of their referrals – an internal site can allow employees to continually track the progress of their referrals as well as their accumulated bonuses (Accenture and Aricent).
4. Offer referral program kiosks – because not all employees have continuous access to a computer, standalone referral kiosks often need to be strategically placed around the facility. These kiosks can be used to input referrals and to provide information about open positions. They can include advice, frequently asked questions, and a calendar of upcoming referral events (Aricent).
5. Online assessment tools – develop and offer online assessment tools so that the skills of referral candidates can be quickly assessed. Also consider another option of offering tools that allow the prospects to self-assess themselves before they agree to become a referral.
6. Online interview scheduling – develop a website that allows referrals who have been chosen for interviews to self-scheduling their own interview times (Alaska Airlines).

IX. Process management and the administrative aspects of referral programs

The effective administration of the ERP is an extremely important component for producing great referrals.

1. Proactively discourage weak referrals – help to avoid a clogged referral queue by developing a process that discourages “junk referrals.” Discourage your employees from referring their relatives, and strangers who “approach them.” In order to ensure that your employees are screening out weak prospects, require employees to thoroughly know and assess their referral’s work, their skills, their interest in the job, and their cultural fit. You can also require employees to rate their knowledge of their candidates on a 1 to 5 scale. Requiring this level of knowledge and assessment helps to make the employee own the quality of their referral, and it minimizes the wasting of hiring managers and recruiters time on weak referrals (Agilent & Aricent).
2. Establish referral targets for managers – managers and teams produce a higher percentage of referrals when they are provided up front with specific referral targets or goals for each quarter. Also rank managers from best to worst on their ERP performance (Aricent & Acumen Solutions).
3. Encourage internal competition – offering rewards for early-bird referrals (i.e. the first submitted) can foster competition and encourage employees to respond quickly. Holding contests between rival business ynits can also foster a competitive mindset around producing referrals. An employee scorecard that lists the employee’s personal referral success rate allows employees to continually track the progress of their referrals as well is accumulated bonuses. One organization sends their iRefer dashboard to all employees to encourage competition and to allow employees to contact top referrers for advice (Tata Consultancy & Aricent).
4. Continually monitor referral vendors – maintain continuous awareness of the services offered by the numerous established and emerging vendors in the referral area. Even if you don’t use them, be aware of the concepts, the technologies, and the outsourcing options that are emerging in this area.
5. You need dedicated program staff and recruiters – the best programs develop a referral team and assign responsive recruiters to specialize in referrals (Owens Corning, Microsoft, & Amazon)
6. Develop an SLA – you can increase the responsiveness of line managers by instituting service-level agreements that spell out expectations for both managers and the ERP program staff (Aricent & Tata Consultancy).
7. Develop a best practice sharing process – periodically survey or interview both new hires from referrals and employees (with successful and failed referrals) in order to identify what worked and what didn’t. Develop a formal process (i.e.  a Wiki, listserv, Facebook page, Twitter feed, or online forum) that allows employees to ask questions and to easily post and share best practices for finding prospects, building relationships, and selling prospects.
8. Monitor progress and continually improve using metrics – periodically assess the satisfaction of employees, hiring managers, and individuals who were referred. Other key metrics that should be tracked include new-hire job performance, new-hire retention, boomerang rehires, offer acceptance ratio, diversity referrals, and referrals as a percentage of all hires (Aricent & Accenture).

Some Benchmark ERP Milestones

Some “best in the world” metrics to compare yourself to include:

• Participation rate (% of employees with at least one referral): 71% -Aricent
• Percentage of all hires from referrals (with a bonus): 78% -AmTrust
• Percentage of all hires from referrals (without paying a bonus): 70% -AmTrust
• Employee satisfaction rate: 98% -Aricent
• Percent of boomerang rehires through referrals: 72% -Aricent
• Most globalized ERP: operates in 40 countries -Microsoft

Referral Program Killers To Avoid

If you expect great results, in addition to providing some of the above advanced features and best practices, you must consciously avoid the following 13 ERP killers:

1. An ERP that is slow to respond to referrals and questions
2. Delaying the reward/bonus payment for three to six months
3. Referral spamming of employees with too many messages
4. Failing to periodically re-energize the ERP
5. No ATS marking of ERP applications so that you can track program effectiveness
6. Equal rewards for all jobs
7. No feedback on weak or bad referrals
8. Individual recruiters are allowed to “ignore” referrals
9. Not tracking referral rates by manager
10. Too many rules and restrictions
11. Not weighting referrals based on the referrer’s track record
12. ERP applications are not given priority treatment in the recruiting process or ATS
13. ERP program manager turnover

Even in shops at the top of their game in recruiting, onboarding itself can make or, as was the case with Morgan Hoogvelt’s friend Herb, break the budding relationship.

“Most corporate onboarding programs are designed from the HR administrator’s perspective,” wrote Dr. John Sullivan in a 2008 article on the subject. That’s one reason why HR vendors have focused on automating the form filling part. That’s transactional onboarding.

The few that offer more — Kenexa is one that stands out here — incorporate social components and cultural acclimation into the onboarding program via externally accessible intranets. The best employers provide the new hire facility maps, profiles of their new colleagues, and welcome messages among other information.

But in the end, as Kevin Wheeler wrote, “a manager who takes time to discuss issues with a new employee, who shows concern over that person’s assimilation, and who knows what the employee can do and wants to do, will make wiser decisions and build loyalty over time.”

Now PeopleAnswers, the assessment firm, is introducing a behavioral onboarding component to its assessment software suite. It’s one of those tools that make sense the minute you see it. In a crisp, direct handful of paragraphs it gives a manager guidance into how best to work with the new employee and make their first few months productive.

As Gab Goncalves, PeopleAnswer’s president and CEO, told me recently, behavioral onboarding talks to the manager about what to expect and what to look for in working with the new hire. Equally important, it offers advice on working with the new employee.

The analysis and the guidance is derived from the PeopleAnswers assessment the employee completed during the pre-hire recruiting process. PeopleAnswers assessments measure dozens of traits and behaviors, scoring them against the results of the company’s top performers in the same job.

Most employers who administer pre-employment assessments typically use them as a screening tool. It’s another data element for recruiters and hiring managers to consider. PeopleAnswers assessments are no exception. The company’s signature thumb up/thumbs down tells recruiters at a glance who the best fits are.

However, the traits and behaviors that result in those recommendations provide insights into each individual that can be used by managers to better understand the specific traits and behaviors of the new hire.

Goncalves gave me a look at how PeopleAnswers leverages these pre-hire assessments. The one-page advisory for Roscoe, a new hire, includes this bit of advice: “Consider that Roscoe tends to have difficulty solving problems involving numbers and may not complete all tasks within the set timeframes.”

The advisory also suggests ways to help: “You may help Roscoe by showing how to perform specific mathematical problems and by requiring him to provide updates as deadlines approach.”

Obviously, Roscoe wasn’t hired for his math skills. But knowing he has a weakness in this area avoids unpleasant surprises and helps his manager help Roscoe.

“What’s exciting,” Goncalves explained, is that the toolset “is taking the candidate from the pre-employment assessment … through to coaching and training.”

Think of PeopleAnswers behavioral onboarding as a guide, not a performance plan. The advisory is computer generated, like those online personality profiles offered by career sites and dating services. Like them, it provides insight into basic traits and behaviors that a manager can use to help a new employee get off to a fast start and feel more comfortable in their new surroundings.

Besides the behavioral onboarding, which I happened to find to find the most intriguing of the new products, PeopleAnswers also is adding a business intelligence component and an interview guide to its talent assessment software suite.

Madeline Laurano, talent systems analyst and advisory practice manager, The Newman Group, said of the lineup,  “PeopleAnswers addresses a critical need in the recruiting process by connecting selection, onboarding, and career planning. Technologies that establish such connections play an essential role in effective employee recruiting.”

The interview guide, like the onboarding piece, leverages the assessment to suggest specific areas of inquiry for the interviewer. Interviewers can choose from among a series of questions or structure their own, based on the narrative description of the issue. Usefully, the guide also counsels the interview on what to listen for and look for during the interview.

A business intelligence component provides an enterprise-wide look at the recruitment process, focusing, obviously, on how the assessments are being used and the results they are providing. There’s a great deal of useful information here, including such things as candidate and hire sources, correlated to their assessment scores, and other metrics. The data can be compared to industry stats and internal data, to the extent its available.

Earlier, PeopleAnswers introduced an authenticity alert, which functions a lot like those credit card fraud alerts. It monitors candidate responses to the assessments and raises an alarm when something doesn’t “smell” right.

As I received feedback on the topic and read through various comments, I thought that surely there had to be a solution to the science of onboarding. Or, perhaps not so much a solution, but a tool to help solve the missteps of the process and have individuals be accountable for their part of the onboarding process. Another thought with regard to on/off-boarding was brought to my attention by my overstuffed wallet (not with money, mind you). As I dug through my wallet to lighten the load, I was surprised at what I found: not one but three security keys from previous places of employment. Two were from organizations where personal financial information was stored, including social security numbers, names, birthdates, bank account numbers, tax returns, etc. How come no one asked for these items back when I left? Is there anyone accountable for asset management in the onboarding/offboarding process?

Shortly after the article went live, I was introduced to a small technology firm called Dovetail Software, located in what is affectionately known as “Silicon Hills” or Austin, Texas. Dovetail Software is an independent technology firm that prides itself in building products that are easy to manage and upgrade while being flexible enough to handle virtually any HR workflow, no matter how custom. This was music to my ears, as corporate America has turned the onboarding process into a complex science. So I figured “what the heck?” and requested the introduction to Manager Kent Valentine.

After speaking at length with Kent, it was clear that this software could be a great tool in helping companies and organizations not only manage their onboarding process but to also promote ownership and responsibility for specific assignments and duties, and go a step further and ensure asset management.

While I am sure there are many tools out there that may be able to help, regardless of which one you may choose, an onboarding platform such as this will enable HR departments to maintain consistent service delivery, stay on top of HR issues, sustain case management through auditing & tracking, review analytics, and manage assets. These topics will continue to be important and scrutinized as CEOs are looking into the HR department more today than in the past.

Perhaps a tool like this would have made Herb’s current employer a bit more organized for his arrival on his first day. Perhaps a tool like this, if used correctly, would have had internal departments held accountable for first day needs such as IT, payroll, and security which in turn would have made Herb’s initial experience the positive welcoming he deserved.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

Oh, if only this formula worked.

Actually, it is this line of thinking that is the leading cause of new-hire-salesperson failure and sales team underperformance. You hire potential, but you have a shared responsibility with your new seller to ensure the potential becomes reality. What many business leaders don’t recognize is that the salesperson arrives with a portfolio of skills, but a program is needed to help her quickly and effectively use those skills in the sales role for the company. The bridge from success potential to reality is your salesperson onboarding program.

Taking a step back, profit-driven companies never hire salespeople. They make an investment in revenue. If you asked your CEO for $30,000 for a trade show, how many hurdles would you have to jump to get the approval? How many return on investment studies would you need to provide? How many blue ribbon panels would be commissioned? Yet, hiring a salesperson at a salary of $30,000 is oftentimes not seen the same way as the investment in a new initiative. Yet, it’s the same corporate dollars and should be prudently handled as any other investment.

With that in mind, you wouldn’t invest $30,000 in your trade show, keep your fingers crossed, and hope for the best. Steps would be taken to ensure the desired return is recognized. In this case, the missing step is your salesperson onboarding program — which protects your new seller investment. If you’ve never had one, you may be wondering where to start. The best place to start is at the end.

Imagine your new hire salesperson has successfully completed your onboarding program. What do you expect that your new seller knows, can do and can use? The three words know – do – use serve as your onboarding program development guide.

Know refers to information like product knowledge, competitive landscape, and company history.

Do refers to action like conducting a sales call, delivering the corporate presentation, and demonstrating a technology platform.

Use refers to tools like your CRM, web meeting, and ordering system.

After identifying your proficiency expectations, the next step is to identify how proficiency will be developed for each one. For example, if you expect your new seller to adeptly conduct a needs analysis sales call, what proficiency development areas are needed to ensure this happens?

After going through this exercise, you will have a laundry list of components for inclusion in your salesperson onboarding program. A common mistake is to squeeze everything into one week, immerse them in your world, and send them out to sell the value. This strategy isn’t effective as there is only so much your new seller will master in a boot camp environment. Plot the program components over several weeks in a logical sequence that is paced such that your new seller has every opportunity to succeed.

Finally, develop a proficiency exam so you can assess performance during the program. This can come in the form of a written exam, individual practical and/or group practical. In essence, you’ve made an investment in your seller by including them in the onboarding program. This is the opportunity for them to demonstrate that they are on track to generate a return on the investment that has been made in them.

You may think of onboarding as a corporate luxury. It’s not! A well-designed onboarding program leads to a quicker revenue contribution from new sellers and performance levels not presently experienced from the veteran sellers. Don’t ever hire another salesperson; make an investment in revenue!

His initial interview was via phone on a Friday, and he did so well that he was invited in for second-round interviews that very next Monday. On Monday, Herb once again wowed the hiring managers and the very next day (Tuesday) he received an offer of employment which he readily accepted with great enthusiasm. Herb kept me up to date through his interview process with this financial institution, and even I was amazed how quick this large giant seemed to move. He told me how everything was great, the people were awesome, and how he was looking forward to day one to get going on his new role.

As I anticipated, last evening I received a phone call from Herb. I was anxious to catch up and hear about his first day in the new position. To my surprise, the tone of Herb’s voice was not that of excitement, rather that of disappointment.

After spending several minutes listening to the events of Herb’s day, I too was very disappointed for him. Now he was wondering if he had made the right decision by accepting the position.

Herb’s disappointment revolved around one topic: onboarding. In going back to the recruitment process and how everything seemed to flow seamlessly, I was sure that a company of this size and stature had to have some type of onboarding program in place. Sure enough on Herb’s first day, he found out that they didn’t. What a disappointment it made his first day.

Let’s revisit some of Herb’s events on his first day:

• Upon arrival, no one to properly greet him or know that he was starting.
• No agenda, materials, or training schedule.
• Building security credentials missing and sent to wrong location.
• Lunch: everyone was too busy, no time for lunch.
• Co-workers wished him good luck and welcomed him to a life of non-stop work.
• The onsite manager didn’t know what to do with him or where to place him.

This is a great example for companies of what not to do on an individual’s first day of work. Herb was and is definitely disappointed in the way things transpired on his first day. The day’s events have set a negative tone for him, and it was day and night from the interactions he witnessed during the recruiting, interview, and offer stage.

When the term “recruiting process” is used, most people take that to mean, “Locate, identify, interview, hire” and end it there. In fact, the term “recruiting process” should never end, and should be a continuous ongoing activity each and every day. The critical step that was missed in Herb’s situation was the onboarding step.

It is of utmost importance to not only create but use a successful onboarding program. The pieces of an onboarding program are very simple and will help to set the tone on the individual’s first day and hopefully for years to come. A successful onboarding program will have three basic elements: participants, material, and timeframe.

• Participants: identify who is going to be part of the process and who will be participating in the onboarding program. Each participant should have a full understanding of the program in order to deliver a productive and consistent message.
• Material: have a defined plan of action and itinerary. Topics may include: welcome message, company history, products/services, competition, policies/procedures, department briefings, etc.
• Timeframe: as mentioned above, the recruiting process should be ongoing and never stop. This will enhance employee engagement and communication which may help to reduce turnover and keep employees happy over the long run.

Furthermore, there are some even more basic tasks that can be accomplished so new employees don’t have the same bad experience that Herb did:

• Designate an individual to meet and greet a new employee upon arrival and show him/her around.
• Send out a welcome letter or email to make existing employees aware of the new hire.
• Have the workstation set up and properly functioning complete with computer, email address, supplies, training materials, etc.
• Have business cards pre-ordered with name, direct dial, and email address complete and spelled correctly.
• Have lunch pre-arranged with co-workers and peers.
• Schedule a drop-by or meeting with senior management if available.

Remember, it’s the little things that count and first impressions are everything. I felt for Herb, as it is disappointing to start a new job feeling like you are more of a problem than a solution on Day 1.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

What Salz has been traditionally doing is helping companies improve their sales processes and teams. He started noticing that a lot of the top sales people — well, the ones companies thought were tops — didn’t pan out. They just didn’t turn out to be top performers, or they quit, or somehow the company didn’t get their skills to work for the products and services the company was selling. At one minor league baseball team, for example, Salz says that ticket-salespeople are taking an entire year to get up to speed.

Meanwhile, Salz was seeing and reading what we’ve all seen too — that companies are focusing many investments on sales, since with limited dollars in a tighter economy that’s where they see the payoff. “It’s one area where they’re willing to invest,” he says.

So about six months ago he had his IT group start work on what’s now called the “Revenue Accelerator” and launches February 1.

Revenue Accelerator allows three different programs to be created: one for inside employees who are moved into sales jobs; one for new salespeople with industry experience; and one for outsiders without industry experience, whose onboarding programs might extend, for example, for 12 weeks instead of 10.

The administrator — the sales director, for example — uses the Revenue Accelerator system to create modules for salespeople to learn during their first several weeks on the job, like those on the graphic at right.

The administrator adds articles, links, documents, and so on for salespeople to use as learning tools. They can also, using the Revenue Accelerator, email colleagues asking them to suggest items new salespeople need to know.

And, they can create (see graphic at left, click to enlarge) exams for salespeople to take, measuring their knowledge after the first week, second week, third, and so on.

Corporations will pay $2,500 a year for the administrator to use the product, plus $500 for each salesperson who goes through it. Four of Salz’s current clients are in beta now with it, at no charge. One is Archway, whose president tells me the “magic” in the system is not that it’s some sort of new technology, but that it helped them focus on what salespeople need to know, when they need to know it, and on testing whether that has happened.

On the penultimate day of 2010, First Advantage was acquired by a private equity firm that also holds a sizeable chunk of Lawson Software. Symphony Technology Group, based in Palo Alto, California, bought First Advantage for $265 million in cash from owner CoreLogic.

First Advantage is involved in multiple aspects of talent acquisition, including background screening and assessments, applicant tracking technology, onboarding, and candidate sourcing and recruitment marketing.

First Advantage CEO Todd Mavis will remain.

Coincidentally, Lawson Software announced just before Christmas that it was acquiring Enwisen, a SaaS HR services provider, for $70 million, plus a contingent additional $5 million. The deal was to close last Friday.

A global ERP provider, Lawson serves multiple business sectors, including manufacturing, distribution, financial, healthcare, and others. It offers a range of HR technology from talent acquisition to workforce management, which roll up into its Lawson Strategic Human Capital Management.

Enwisen, which also has a global client list, brings a complementary set of services, adding onboarding and offboarding, a knowledge base, and HR portal to enhance Lawson’s own self-service component, and other worker usability elements. Lawson said Enwisen’s HR service delivery will become a new strategic component of the Lawson Human Capital Management System.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

• Confused
• Frustrated
• Overwhelmed
• Bored
• Annoyed
• Anxious
• Insecure
• Disappointed
• Regretful

Lee, speaking at ERE’s conference in San Diego, says these are the emotions your employees ought to be left with.

• Welcome
• Comfortable
• Secure
• Valued
• Important
• Proud
• Excited
• Confident

Unfortunately, the questions are rarely asked, resulting in inefficient, ineffective practices.

Do not pose these questions periodically; incorporate them into your approach to build an engaging candidate experience, a more compelling offer presentation, and ultimately, a more productive hire.

Questions for Candidates (Aimed at Improving Offer Acceptance)

• What criteria will you use to evaluate and rank offers you receive? When you’re targeting currently employed individuals or talent likely to receive multiple offers (I would argue that is the only talent you should be targeting), it’s important to focus your recruiting process not only on assessing the candidates skills, but also on determining the factors that will weigh heavily in their decision-making when the process is complete. By identifying the decision criteria early on, you can improve how you position the opportunity you are recruiting for by maximizing the talking points around factors you can realistically deliver and readjust expectations around those you cannot. Too many organizations push through the process only to make a generic offer according to a template that doesn’t address the candidate’s expectations.
• What three things would make this job superior to your current one? If you are truly targeting top talent, chances are a good percentage of the candidates who make it to the offer stage in your process are going to get a counteroffer from their current employer. Failing to identify what factors would make the new opportunity better than their existing opportunity is setting the stage to focus solely on money should an offer battle ensue.
• Who will you consult prior to making a final decision about an offer? Research shows that individuals generally don’t make important life decisions without consulting close friends, colleagues, or relatives. Not knowing who will have your candidate’s ear makes it nearly impossible to predict what issues the candidate’s advisors may bring up. This makes it even more difficult to provide relevant information throughout the process that arms the candidate with positive information to remedy any possible negative issues that could arise.

Questions to Ask During Onboarding and Orientation (Aimed at Improving the Recruiting Process)

• Can you list the most compelling factors that led you to accept our offer? Once the deal has been signed, candidates, now new hires, have less motivation to couch their responses to questions in an effort to improve their chances of getting what they want, in essence, they are more honest. One of the best questions you can ask during this phase of the relationship deals with identifying what about the company, the job, or the benefits was so compelling that the candidate accepted the offer. Identifying what is and is not compelling (the next question) can help you refocus how to communicate about opportunities moving forward. You can talk up the good stuff, while minimizing focus on the not so good stuff.
• Can you list your concerns and any reasons that almost led you to say no? Again, this reversal of the previous question helps you identify what elements need to be either addressed or dropped altogether from your sales approach.
• What part of the process worked the best? What part was frustrating? If you want to improve the candidate experience, identify the aspects of the recruiting process that both engaged and frustrated candidates. Use this information along with statistics about candidates dropping out of the process voluntarily to determine what steps in your process need to be refined in order to convert more talent.
• What caused you to apply for the position? If you want to identify how best to allocate your sourcing spend, you need robust metrics to tell you what messages are driving people to apply and where they came into contact with the message (i.e., the source of hire and branding points that led to interest). Many organizations attempt to collect this information via their recruiters, but the data is often corrupted by lack of adherence to source coding policies.
• What other firms did you seriously consider or receive an offer from? This question is important for two reasons. First, it helps you identify your talent competitors, which often includes organizations that do not compete directly with you on the product or service front. Second, it helps you identify offer elements from other organizations that talent of interest to you find compelling.
• Who else should we recruit from your previous employer? Truly great talent loves working alongside other great talent and generally leverages some influence over colleagues they respect and value at their previous employer. Asking this question not only helps you target future recruiting efforts, it subliminally prods the new hire to actively position the organization as a great next step when they talk to former colleagues. If they’re enthusiastic, you might also ask for their help in recruiting the top individuals via the referral program.

Questions to Ask During Onboarding (Aimed at improving the Management of New Hires)

• Why did you quit your last few jobs? If you want to reduce future turnover, learn what was frustrating enough to cause your new hire to start looking for a new job and eventually quit their previous job. Once you identify these reasons, it’s wise to make sure their current manager knows what they are and develops a plan to prevent similar issues.
• Help me understand what motivates you and what your manager could do to help you be as productive as you can be? Asking new hires early on what motivates and frustrates them can provide you with an arsenal of information a manager can use to manage workforce productivity 1:1. While it would be great if managers would accept ownership for doing this naturally, numerous studies show they don’t!
• Where would you like to be career-wise in three years? This question helps you understand early on what expectations and future job aspirations may influence on-the-job behavior and likely tenure. By identifying what timeline a candidate/new hire has in mind, you can work to make sure you deliver career advancement opportunities in line with their expectations (i.e., before they start looking for someone else to deliver them). Also, ask what they would like to learn, which can be used to structure development and retention efforts.

Questions to Ask Candidates Who Dropped Out of the Process Pre- or Post-Offer

Delaying asking these questions for a period of three months significantly increases the likelihood of hearing an honest answer. If necessary, use a third-party vendor to capture this information as former candidates will have even less motivation to lie.

• Why did you drop out of the process? For those who dropped out of your hiring process early, ask them to list the reasons why they dropped out. Frequently, you will find that your recruiting processes are too slow or too frustrating to engage top talent.
• Why did you reject our offer? Most candidates will provide an answer to this question when they turn down the offer. More often than not, that answer has to do with money. Saying it is the money is an easy out — it doesn’t require as much courage as saying the hiring manager was a jerk, the job sucks, or the company doesn’t provide the right resources to enable employees to do the job they were hired to do. Several studies that have compared offers ultimately accepted by talent who turned down other offers reveal that rarely is the money difference significant. Other studies reveal that if you delay asking the question for several months, you are more likely to get an answer that doesn’t focus on the money.

Final Thoughts

The single-most important activity recruiters can do to improve recruiting effectiveness is to gather information that helps explain why the process is working when it is, and why it is not when it isn’t. By embedding these questions in your recruiting process, you can gain the information needed to radically improve the effectiveness of your efforts.

We were joined yesterday by recruiting thought leader Elaine Orler of Knowledge Infusion to discuss onboarding with a limited budget. With budget cuts becoming widespread in many companies, onboarding is unfortunately a process that often gets cut.

Elaine revealed that an effective onboarding process will reduce turnover in the first 30-90 days and increase productivity among new hires. In addition, effective onboarding can help your brand and reputation.

New hires form opinions of your organization starting on day one. Through bypassing redundant forms and busy work on the first day, new employees are more likely to form a positive opinion of their new role. By welcoming an employee into your business culture as soon as possible, you are in turn preparing them to succeed at their job.

Throughout the course of the webinar, Elaine covered onboarding strategies that included extending existing technology, improving collaboration and communication, and introducing new tools that can help onboarding efforts.

By using a “conversation ecosystem” with third party applications like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, it’s possible to quickly engage a new hire into the social community of your business environment. Also, by implementing a mentoring or “buddy system” with existing employees, you can acclimate new employees to their roles. In addition many of these strategies cost little to nothing.

At the conclusion of the presentation (about 40 minutes into the video) Elaine answered a plethora of questions from the audience. Among the topics covered were how to onboard current employees into new positions, the challenges of onboarding across different countries and cultures, and different strategies for onboarding across generations. View the slideshow and archived video of the presentation below to learn more!