If I Was Running A Company…ROI (and ROE)

If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years (probably two of you), you realize I have never discuss the main business buzzword: Return on Investment (ROI).  I’ll be honest, I never fully captivate what ROI did for business.  It’s simple math (in my opinion): if you hire the person, brings in revenue, and stays with the organization for 3-5+ years, the ROI is great.  If the person stays for less than a year, then ROI takes a hit for your organization.  It is a simple formula, yet very complex.  I always thought ROI is an overrated statistic for business.  After attending RecruitDC, I think ROI is useful, but I think business professionals (including recruiters) are looking at this backwards (and overusing the term to death).

I understand ROI is a statistic to tell businesses where they stand, but I feel people are using ROI like their life depends on it.  If there is one thing ROI relies on, it’s the something that people never think to apply on business: the Return on Emotion (ROE).

ROE should start in the networking circuit when a recruiter (or hiring manager) meets a candidate for the first time and the representative and candidate are engaged with each other.  If the representative of that organization has a job opening , the both will likely get a phone screen and/or interview and this is where you have to use your business emotion.  While the interview is going on, the hiring manager must answer these questions internally:

1. Do I believe in his/her word?
2. Do I trust he/she will do it?
3. Is my business emotion to this candidate high, low, or in the middle?
4. What is my threshold dealing with candidate?

If the hiring manager’s emotion is positive in all of the questions, the ROE is very good and likely the candidate will get hired.  If any question has a negative tone, don’t consider the candidate (but do help him/her on their job search since they are  a connection).  The point for ROE is for the hiring manager to be comfortable with the candidate from day one and continue into the workplace.  ROE is about chemistry and expectations.

Business relationships carry most of your business. If your ROE is high, it is very likely the business ROI will be high as well. ROI tells businesses results, but at times, outside forces skew the results since ROI is measured at that moment.  A high ROE would help organizations to handle what comes at them.  However, if your business emotion is either high or low during troubled times, your ROE is skewered as well.  This is why people always say in the business, “Keep your emotions in check.”

It’s a simple equation: ROE measures the quality of the business relationship in that department and gives you the outcome, while ROI measures the quantity of your department and backs it up with statistics.  If you want an easy tip on how to measure ROE, look into your hiring manager’s eyes, body language, and tone.  That’s your answer.

#RecruitDC

I attended the inaugural RecruitDC unconference yesterday. My expectations for the event is that it will be similar to the Social Recruiting Summit but with a broader sense on recruiting in DC. 

At first, it didn’t start well since the stage was a rink and had to hold off my emotions. I wasn’t this emotional since my family threw away Pedro the Christmas Tree in the mid 90s, although Lance Haun reminded me the stage look like a scene from Tron and thankfully, I was not asked to wear this.

Anyway, the keynote speaker, Gerry Crispin, spoke about the candidate experience.  This was the first time I met Gerry in person but from others, through blogs and social media, they were saying great things about Gerry…and they were right.  Gerry discuss the candidate experience and how organizations are trying to enhance the candidate experience.  L’Oreal is a great example of how the company uses their site to customize the experience for the visitor.  Gerry has a great understanding of what’s trending in recruiting and the future it holds.

The next session for me was to understand Facebook pages since it is the only social media aspect that I have trouble with.  The session gave me a good idea how should I do, but will have to discuss with the HR department and NPR’s social media guy, Andy Carvin on how to incorporate the careers site to Facebook or be it separate.

The next one I attended was the sourcing panel and I have started committing to sourcing 6 months ago and it has improve my recruiting skills significantly.  The sourcing panel was great explaining their tips and strategies.  The only complaint I have is when they were showing their sourcing tips onscreen, it was very small to read.  Since they had two screens, I would like one screen as the general screen and the other screen to zoom in on what they are typing.

After lunch, it was to the recruiting challenges panel and two big discussions came out of it: One came from the back channel where one of the panelists would like to ask “What Would You Do?” and from Twitter, someone counter with, “What Will You Do?” 24 hours later, I’m still pondering what is a good question.  The other big discussion is ROI.  I will write more on ROI tomorrow but I will say that I’m mixed on ROI and leave it at that. 

Next was the veterans panel and to be frank, I didn’t pay attention because the military is not my strong suit, but I will echo the panel that veterans should have a fair shot at getting a job they’re applying and employers should be aware the conditions the veterans were in.  By tone, the veterans panel was the most passionate and emotional of all the sessions.

Finally, the last session was the recruiter career development panel.  The key point from that panel I got was all the people who were in attendance in that session, not one recruiter raised their hand when they want to move up to HR Generalist.  This means people really love recruiting or we have a bigger gap between recruiting and HR.  My guess is more towards the latter since most companies assume recruiting is part of HR and those companies probably don’t appreciate HR, hence why recruiters want to be their own division.  That was the only key point I got from the discussion.  When someone mentions, “Getting a seat at the table,” you just lost the audience.  Also, I would like to see 1 or 2 people who are in a small HR department to get a different perspective of their career development and not 5 big companies.

Usually I would start with the good, but in this case I want to start with the bad:

1. I was offended about the last panel on career development when someone mention that if you work in a small company, there’s not much career development.  If you ask me, there is career development if you’re the only HR person in that company.  You can ask yourself to expand responsibilities, you deal with executives at anytime, you play by your own rules along the boundaries you’re given, you can change titles and if you’re stuck on something, you can ask your peers for advice.  There is career development in small organizations, but that person must have the will to do it. 
2. There wasn’t a lot of networking time, but to be fair, the Metro threw everyone off their schedule with delays on the red line.  What do you expect?
3. WiFi was spotty, but we were told about that yesterday, so there was no surprise, but it was frustrating at times.
4. Everything was falling (not a serious negative, by the way).

Now for the good great:

1. The Woolly Mammoth theatre was a great venue to hold an event.  Balcony seats, the stage, the space was a wonderful choice.
2. If you measure how much the conference presentations/panels will incorporate to your organization, RecruitDC did the trick.
3. Meeting new people, old friends, and meeting Gerry, Ben Madden, Kathleen Smith, and the Linkedin crew for the first time.
4. Being the inaugural event, I was amazed at how well-prepared it was, even the fire alarm warnings, the metro delays and spotty WiFi. 

I’m glad there’s going to be another RecruitDC coming up (maybe one more before the year ends) and hopeful we get a similar venue like Woolly Mammoth but with 3G/WiFi and I want to thank Ben Gotkin, Jessica Lee, Kelly Dingee, Kathleen Smith, and the rest of the RecruitDC committee for setting up the event and I hope everyone learn something that you can utilize for your organization.

Links:

• RecruitDC Twitter stream
• RecruitDC Presentations
• RecruitDC Flickr Page

If I Was Running A Company…Bettina Deynes (Updated)

I read this SHRM article on Bettina Deynes (hat tip to Kristen Hudak, blogger for MASN’s National Buzz, for sending this article) who is the Vice President of HR for the Washington Nationals.  The cover story is about how Bettina and the HR department collaborate with General Manager Mike Rizzo and the front office. 

Rizzo wanted a culture of winning in the organization after the Nationals lost more than 100 in back-to-back seasons. On one hand, Rizzo need to sign free agents and develop players who would change the team’s culture.  Rizzo also wanted Bettina to hire more scouts and develop training programs to encourage that for this upcoming season, the Nationals are a serious baseball club.

There are two reasons I love this story.  One was how much Bettina went through with the Nationals since joining in 2006: Alfonso Soriano 40-40 and bolted to the Cubs, the opening of Nationals Park, Dmitri Young and Elijah Dukes, the Dominican Republic player scandal, the Natinals, Jim Bowden, Clint, season ticket holders, Phillies fans, you name it. After all of that, Bettina is still the Vice President of HR and is reaping the benefits of a new (and in my opinion, better) regime and a growing organization this season and hopefully beyond.

The second thing I love this story is this really gives me hope that HR can collaborate with the front office, either in sports or business.  I wish I was in the Nationals HR department to help out, but this made me wonder: does the Washington Capitals (or Washington Sports and Entertainment) have a HR department to improve the organization and hopefully (but really slim chance) to motivate the players on the team?  If Ted Leonsis, George McPhee, or Mary Davis, President of Employment and Administrative Services for Washington Sports and Entertainment, are reading this, if there any HR openings, I’m available and hopefully the HR department collaborates with the front office a lot. Why not stop there: how about the Redskins? Ok, too far (the offices is at Ashburn and I don’t drive). How about working for the Wiz…oh wait, they’re cursed.

Anyway, this has giving me renowned hope that HR can work with the front office, and new hope that a HR department can help a sports team. Thank you, Bettina for giving me a new lease on my working career…

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and I’m still waiting for that phone call Ted, George or Mary.

Update: Since the Washington Wizards won the NBA Draft Lottery and get the number 1 pick and likely select John Wall and possibly a big free agent, I wouldn’t mind working for the Wizards at all.  But if I have a list of who to work for in order:

1. Caps
2. Nationals
3. Wizards
4. Redskins
5. United
6. Divas

If I Was Running A Company…Job Hopping

Last week (thanks to Ask A Manager), I read two articles on job hopping. You can read Nick’s take and Mark’s take on job hopping.  To summarize, both said if you job hop a lot before the age of 30, you’re screwed and when you get your first job, stays for at least 3-5 years.  Essentially, most of the things they I agree with.

Actually, people who are in college, should start intern hopping after their sophomore year.  If you’re in college, graduate school or a recent grad, take the opportunity to go into three different internships: one employer with less than 100 employees, one medium employer with 100-500 employees  and one large employer with over 500 employees.  Before they get their first full-time job, the person should have a perspective of each size, culture and personality and the person will have an idea who they want to work for.

After their internship, I agree on both articles that people who are coming into the workforce should have a made up ”entry-level contract” of 3 years in their mind.  The new employee must show development in those three years.  The first year is the getting to know stage, the second year is getting use to the job, and the last year of the “contract” should be the overall package that has been trained and learned from the past two years, which includes learning the organization culture.  After those three years, the person now can be a “free agent” if he/she wants to stay or go for “greener pastures.”  By any chance if you leave before 3 or so years, employers will question not only your commitment, but what happened that force both sides to part ways.  There are circumstances that you have to job hop, but if there is a below average response to that question, start searching for a temp agency to re-establish your working career.

If there is one thing I disagree with the articles, it’s implying that you must be a team player and toe the company line. It is important to be a team leader, but it is more important that the person has a tone and direction with the organization. Hence, why you see in the qualifications section of the job posting, “Independent, but can able to work with a team.”  Besides, if everyone thinks like company people, we’re back to the 1960s again.

What I’m telling people who are coming in the real world for the first time is to have perspective, plan, and be proactive before entering the workforce. These three years are your first impression in your working career, so don’t squandered this opportunity or you will lose your footing early.  Now, if you want to start your own company, I hope you have a great support system and a lot of luck.

If I Was Running A Company…Training and Development

Retention and talent have been the staple for human resources for almost 20 years.  Organizations use retention programs to encourage employees to stay with the organization for a long time.  On the talent side, the philosophy for many organizations back then is stockpiling top talent.  Those programs and ideas coincided with the economy back in the 1990s: drop in unemployment and a booming economic growth.  In today’s climate, those philosophies are gone.  The economy could be a great excuse for the changing workforce, but there is one thing that is making a bigger impact of the changing workforce: our lifestyle.

I am not talking about workplace culture where people gets a certificate for hard work and everyone has work/life blending, flex scheduling.  I am talking about our short attention spans, time getting faster, our numerous choices of clothing, technology, housing, people and others.  In essence, if we can divorce people either once or 8 times, why not in the business place?  If we can get bribed, why not go to a place that has a lot of resources?  The working environment is revolving and most organizations don’t know how to deal with it.  How can organizations deal with all this change?  Training and Development.

Organizations must realize people want to do their job, get results, and are not tied to yours or any organization.  Simply put, they want an opportunity for something big down the line.  Organizations need to stop thinking about retaining employees and start building them up.  All of the paychecks, benefits, perks can only go so far.   Organizations need to help employees to develop new skills and bring in people who can collaborate with the employee so the organization can force the issue that they might want to stay with the organization.  There is no guarantee the employee will stay, but at least you made an attempt since you brought the person in, train, develop and build up the person where he/she is today.

Compensation and style will play part in the person’s decision, but in the overall picture, if you treat your employees well, give them the proper development, and the right employees, it benefits for both sides if the person either leaves or stays. It shows both sides were a great match and if the employee bails, you can always leave the door open for a return, like Pamela Anderson or Tommy Lee (or Kid Rock).

Side note: If your really want to keep an employee, don’t do this.