Turn your Workplace into a Talent Magnet

Turn your Workplace into a Talent Magnet Turn your Workplace into a Talent Magnet Turn your Workplace into a Talent Magnet Talent Magnetism Webinar Slides PDF Talent Magnetism Chapter Download PDF Note: Youll need Adobe Reader to view the PDF file above. Download Adobe Reader. Tuesday, February 18th, 2014 Is this the year your company will attract and keep the best talent? Or will 2014 be the year that top talent stays away and your most valuable employees walk out the door? During this lively hour-long webinar, Roberta shares easy-to-apply techniques from her new book, Talent Magnetism: How to Build a Workplace That Attracts and Keep the Best. Youll come away with fresh ideas on how to create a magnetic workplace that fosters innovation and fuels growth. Download the presentation anddownloada 10-page print out from Robertas latest book,Talent Magnetism. About the Presenter: Roberta Matuson Author and President of Matuson Consulting Roberta Chinsky Matuson, president of Matuson Consulting and best-selling author of Suddenly in Charge, has helped leaders in Fortune 500 as well as small and medium-size businesses achieve dramatic growth and market leadership through the maximization of talent. She is frequently quoted in business publications and is a top-ranking blogger for Fast Company and Forbes, and is a talent expert for Staples.com and Monster. She is one of a handful of people who have appeared as a guest of Bill OReillys on Foxs OReilly Factor and left the show unscathed. More from Roberta onrecruiting and retaining top talent: Video: Recruit a Deeper Talent Pool Video: Calculating the Cost of a Hiring Mistake How to Conduct an Interview and Impress Top Candidates To view the abbreviated version of the video and transcript, please visit http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/hr-events/past-hr-events/talent-magnetism-webinar.aspx Webinar Transcript: 18 Feb 14 Welcome to this webinar presented by Monster. Im Connie Blaszczyk, Managing Editor of the Resource Center. Thank you for joining todays presentation. Today well be looking at how you can turn your workplace into a talent magnet and our presenter is Roberta Matuson. Roberta is President of Matuson Consulting; a firm that helps organizations achieve dramatic growth in market leadership through the maximization of talent. She is the author of the international bestseller, Suddenly In Charge Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around. Her latest book is Talent Magnetism. Perhaps youve looked over the chapter from Talent Magnetism that was available for download when you signed up to attend the webinar, and you may have even completed the employee retention self-assessment in that chapter. If not, no worries. All registered participants of todays webinar will receive an email with a direct link to todays presentation as well as a link to the chapter from Robertas book, Talent Magnetism. Before we begin, we have a few quick housekeeping details to take care of. We look forward to your questions today, which well address at the end of the presentation. To submit your questions, please use the QA module on your WebEx screen. And if youre listening to todays webinar by phone and youd like to ask a question, please be aware that youll be placed on mute until the QA session begins. With that, its my pleasure now to introduce our presenter, Roberta Matuson. Roberta, welcome. Thank you, Connie. Thank you for that lovely introduction. I am delighted to be here today and want to talk a little bit about 2014, because this is going to be a year unlike any other that weve seen as far as talent goes. And were already actually seeing some changes. Ive noticed in my practice that companies are focusing on their front door. Whats happening is, though, lots of people are exiting the back door. I noticed this happening probably about six months ago in at least in the north-east and in certain industries, and my prediction is that this trend will continue to happen. So its really important as were talking today to think about what your organization can do in terms of not only attraction but also employee retention. I do a lot of traveling and most recently I was in Atlanta. I was riding the Metro System BART to a meeting and I ran across this gentleman, and we began to talk about his most recent business trip. I call this guy Jeff. As it turns out, I gave him another nickname after our conversations and that was Jeff the Plucker. Thats because he is going around the country opening up new offices for his organization and he is out there plucking talent. Hes actually going inside and meeting people at conventions and he is swooping them up. So I want to get you guys to think about what you can do to prevent Jeff when he calls, to prevent your people from even thinking that they want to speak to him. So lets do a quick poll here. Is your workplace experiencing these warning signs? Im going to give you just a couple of lets set a minute to record your answers. Specifically, I want to know which one of these is your biggest headache. Weve got increased employee turnover, increased sick time, declining productivity, and increased customer complaints. Now, you can only pick one. Do we have those results? Are those results ready yet? They are tallying now. Okay. We are getting that tally for you right now. When I talk to clients about this, sometimes they really cant pick one because its all happening. I know that can be challenging, especially when youve got 10,000 other priorities. Okay, well, the number one item is increased can you read that for us here? That poll question? Here we go. Its increased employee turnover. 70% of you are seeing significant increase in your employee turnover, and then the next highest was declining productivity. Ill tell you, Im relieved to see that youre not seeing much in the way of increased customer complaints, because then we really know that theres a lot more going on here. So lets keep that in mind as we go through todays session. We see these ongoing trends, and heres some survey results from a survey that had done on what employees think about their employers. I think its really interesting, because we have to take note of this. A lot of people are saying that their companies arent providing them the time and training needed to support them in their jobs, and that can be extremely frustrating. If youve been hired to do a job and you come in and then all of a sudden you dont have the skills or youre being asked to do something and you dont have the information, that can be very frustrating. The area where hiring managers really and recruiters understand my skills and abilities, 47% of those surveyed disagree with that. Thats kind of scary. Then the question on employers are willing to provide higher compensation than 12 months ago, we see that 78% of those surveyed disagreed. Were going to talk today about how money isnt necessarily the solution but I will tell you this money does matter. So if you dont think it matters then Ill challenge any of you to take a 10 or a 15% pay cut and tell me how happy you still are. I always like to look for best practices whenever Im working with clients to help them really connect with potential employees, because if you look around all you ever hear about is companies like Google and how theyre capturing most of the talent, which Im here to assure you theres lots of other talent out there that theyre not getting. We also hear about what a wonderful job companies like Disney do. But today, I want to talk about some companies that may not be household names. The first company that I want to share some information about is a company called Interchange. Heres how this CEO really has connected with the hearts and souls of his people. He had a new employee, his name is Chris, and he had a hired a new employee who within three months time had come down with a pretty severe illness. When we think about it, we think that in most situations employers would say, Im really sorry. You havent been with us for a year, you cannot take a leave. Well, thats not at all what Chris did. Chris did everything in his power to give this employee time off. He guided this employee and suggested that she call her parents and asks them to take care of her kids, because she was a single parent. He hired a nutritionist for her. He found her a specialist who could give her a second opinion. He did everything within his power to help this employee. Heres what happened in the end. Its been 18 months now since this happened to his employee and this woman is still with Chris and thankfully shes healthy but he provided her that support and I have to say he will have this employee for life. Now, we have another company that is doing some amazing things for his people, although many of you probably have never heard of this group either, and thats QRSTs. Their CEO is Peter Rinnig. What Peter has done is he recognizes that he may not be able to pay top dollar because he is a small business owner, but he has given his employees something that they cant get anywhere else. Heres one example. He has an employee who he allows during this employees touring season this employee happens to work for a band. Hes in a band. Peter gives this employee time off to go travel with his band during their concert season, and then this employee comes back every year and continues his work. To even add more to that connection, Peter also allows this gentleman to print T-shirts because its a T-shirt printing company that he can sell on the road and he and his band can make more money. These are just some examples of companies that have gone away from the norm, and even with limited resources are finding ways to connect with the heart and soul of their people. In todays webinar, were going to really define what top talent is. Were going to look at the new laws of talent attraction, because this is really for most of us post-recession, and we have to operate differently because the rules are completely different. Were going to talk about how to create an exceptional workplace, and Im going to give you some warning signs that may indicate that youre losing your magnetic touch and thatll give you a chance to get it back before it goes away. Im going to talk with you about why employees really leave not necessarily the reason that they tell you that theyre leaving and then were going to talk together about what we can do to keep these people, especially the ones that we want to keep. So, what defines top talent? Well, in a nutshell, these are the people that youd really miss if they went away tomorrow. So Im going to pause for a minute and I want you to jot down their names so that when you get off of todays webinar, you are sure to pay special attention to these people. Now, by identifying the top talent, youll also know exactly the type of people you should be looking for as you add additional personnel to your growing business. So if you wrote down Mike, then you write down, I need three more Mikes. Thats what I want you to be thinking, because those people have something in common and its going to be different for every single company. For example, if youre in a technology company, you might be looking for people who work really well together in teams. You might want collaborators as well as risk takers. If youre in a law firm, its highly unlikely youre going to want to hire risk takers. You want people that are very detail oriented, people who are diligent. Its a different kind of person that will usually perform at a high level in those different environments so you really have to know what it is thats right for your organization. I have said this time and time again to my clients and eventually when they listen and they replace people who may not be performing as well as they would like, they see that you dont need a lot of people when you have top talent. Think about it most of us have moved somewhere within our lifetimes, right? Especially when we were younger and maybe were still doing this were asking our friends to come and help move us, right? What winds up happening is youve got this SUV, three friends and a case of beer, and that could take maybe the entire weekend for a move to be completed. Not to mention that after the moves completed, oftentimes these people will refuse to take our calls, because they think were going to ask them for help again moving. Compare that to the experience of what happens when you have professional movers. You got three guys in a truck and they get that job done in record time and with minimal breakage. So you can see the benefits of having top talent. I want you to think about your workforce and todays talent pool, because it really is changing. Im seeing employers today still operating under the premise that, Weve got all the time in the world. Were going to bring this person in. Were going to interview them. Well have them come back three or four more times, and it goes on and on and on. In the meantime, by the time this person comes in for your first interview and leaves, theyre getting emails in the parking lot saying, Hey, heres your job offer, from someone else. So youve got to throw your recession mentality out of the door because its no longer that way out there, and youve got to understand those new rules. Lets go ahead and take a poll on how you would describe your workforce, because its so important to understand what your workforce is mostly composed of. Your choices are multi-generational, mostly Gen Y also known as Millennials, mostly Gen X, mostly Boomers or Hey, Im not really sure. In each of these generations, the people in them, they all have some different needs and thats why its really important for us to know were working with. So I think the tally is going on and we should have those results in just a few seconds, hopefully. I see the poll has ended and we should get those results up. Lets see. My guess was that most of you will be multi-generational and I was correct. See, I did get my answer out there before it showed up. Youre multi-generational and thats theres some good news to that and some not so good news, which well go through. But its interesting because the second layer is mostly Gen Y Millennials and its a pretty big disparity between the two. So lets move on and Im going to talk about a little bit about what all of this means. Here are todays players in the game of life, and its interesting because when I wrote Talent Magnetism, I really thought about how life had changed. Im a Baby Boomer and when I grew up, you had this game, The Game of Life. You went around the board and you added your spouse who by the way was of the opposite sex in every case and you added your two children into the back of that car, and you went around the board until you hit retirement. Todays game of life is entirely different. People have different combinations of families, people have different needs. People are traveling around the board and theyre not necessarily heading down one path. Youve got to understand this. Lets start with those Millennials or Gen Y. Their approach to work is they really want you to convince them that working in your organization is worth their time. If youre a Baby Boomer like me, you might be shocked because you could be saying, Theyre lucky to have a job, but thats not how it is any more. Remember, we have to reframe our thinking. They really want to make the world a better place, which is really fascinating because if you think about it, thats exactly what the Baby Boomers wanted to do when they started their careers. They also are creating opportunities for continuous development they want to learn. If we look at our mid-career workers, they want to know that theyre next in line for that well deserved promotion. Those Baby Boomers have been keeping them caught up in that in their offices because theyre not leaving, so they want to know that theyre going to eventually get that promotion. Because if theyre not getting it from you, theyre probably going to go somewhere else. They would like their pay raises back. If you think about it, many organizations have stopped giving out pay raises and life hasnt stopped getting expensive. Then they also want some non-traditional benefits for their non-traditional lifestyle, such as anything like adoption benefits, benefits to work out at the gym. They want benefits and they dont want just the standard package. Weve got the re-launchers. Those are the people who are coming back into the workforce who may have been out for a while. Maybe they had families and theyve come back in, maybe theyve had a long term job loss, but they really want you to know that their skills are transferable. They are more than just their name. They can do much more than just one job and they really want a chance. They want you to know that if you give them a chance, theyre going to be highly committed to you. Then we have the off-rampers. Those are the people who are really thinking, Ive still got a lot to offer here. The good news is, theyre really not after your job. When you think about these people, dont worry that, Oh my gosh, theyre smarter than me, or, They have more experience. Theyre going to take my job. That is so not where theyre at. And you know what? Dont keep assuming that theyre going to be just retiring in two years, because that may not happen. But I told you that there was going to be some good news and some bad news. Well, Ive already given you some of the bad news but the good news is that theres a lot that really unite these workers. If you look at this, you can see that we really have more in common than not. For example, people want to feel valued. They really want to do work that matters, so you have to help them connect the dots. They want to feel like theres a sense of purpose here, so when they come in every day theres a reason to do that. They need flexibility whether theyre caring for an aging parent, or whether theyre caring for a young child, or a sick dog, they want flexibility. They really want to be compensated for the value that they bring, so Im going to encourage you to look at your performance management systems and stop treating everyone the same, because theyre all contributing differently. They want opportunities to learn and grow. Its just something that we have to be able to do for these people today or theyre going to go somewhere else. I want to talk about the five myths. Therere probably 10, 15 or 20, but for our purposes we are going to talk about these five myths. What I have seen over the last few weeks is that six people that I know in my circle and let me tell you, my circle isnt that big have recently quit their jobs in the last few weeks. Five of these people had nowhere to go, and the one that did was recruited away at the age of 60. 60-years-old. So if you think that its no longer true, people dont feel like theyre lucky to have a job because they have other choices, and one of those choices is quite frankly unemployment. But people have gotten to the point now where they feel like they just cant stay in their jobs any more if they havent been treated right, so theyve seen other opportunities and theyre moving on. We talk about people wholl work for peanuts. I dont know about you. I dont think that I would, and most people wont. And then also, if we offer a candidate a job, theyll take it. Seeing lots of offers being dismissed and companies are spending a lot of money recruiting and people arent accepting those offers. And again, were going back to that, Im youre only option. I dont think so. I talked a little bit about what some of these options are and how were going to debunk these myths, but if you only take away one thing from todays session its I want you to understand that you are no longer someones only option. And as we move forward, speed is going to be the name of the game for 2014 and beyond. What can you do to accelerate your ability to pull people in and get them on board and then connect with them so you can keep them? That means that you need to go back and challenge yourself or your CEO or the people in your organization to try to apply for a job with your company and see how long it takes to get through that process. Youll be surprised. Ive had CEOs whove attempted this and some couldnt even get a job with their own companies because the roadblocks were so there were so many and it was so high. So its really important if you begin to frustrate candidates, theyre going to go somewhere else. I want to talk a little bit about some of what you need to know in order to create an engaging workplace. You can find the rest in the book Talent Magnetism, but for our purposes today I want to make sure that when you get off of our call, that youve got some information that you can immediately use. The difference between recruitment and attraction is huge. When you think about recruitment, it really requires a lot of heavy lifting. In other words, youve got to write the job description, you post it, youve got to sort through the stacks of resumes, follow up on emails, phone screens, interviews the list goes on and on. I mean, Im exhausted just thinking about it. Then you make this offer and its not accepted and you have to begin and do everything I just described again. Well, when you are an attractive employer, you have people who are lining up because they want to come work for you and its a lot easier to keep great people when they have other great people to work with. When youre thinking like a talent magnet, you have to again begin with the end in mind, and we talked about that knowing exactly what kind of people youre trying to attract, and then you can understand what you need to do to get them. What I find interesting when I do employment branding is that a lot of companies try to be everything to everyone, and so what winds up happening is that theyre really nothing special. It reminds me of McDonalds, the restaurant. You dont see them heavily marketing to vegetarians, do you? They know exactly who their customer is and so should you, and employment branding is really the key for that. Its about your reputation and the way youre perceived by prospective candidates as well as current and past employees. So if you really want to know what the perception is out there, start with websites like Glassdoor.com to view what your employees are saying about you. A little scary, but I think its a good thing to do. Look at what kind of perks you can offer. Again, align those benefits with the life stages that your people are in. Develop magnetic leaders, because we hear over and over again that people leave their bosses, they dont leave their companies, and its very, very true. So if youve got these magnetic leaders, people are not going to leave. If youre listening today and you are the leader you are the CEO, the business owner than you really need to fire up your magnetism and keep that bar high. Its so important to make sure that its okay to have fun at work. Its actually a must. That reminds me of a time that I went in to meet with a prospect. It was a technology company. When I walked into that room and it was an open office environment, cubicles everywhere you could hear a pin drop. I just knew that there was no way that anybody was having fun in this work environment. When I eventually got to see the turnover numbers, that was confirmed. So its really important as youre thinking about how to become magnetic that you create this environment so that your employees are evangelists. When theyre excited and happy, your customers will be excited and happy. What does an exceptional workplace look like? Well, employees feel empowered. They know what they need to do and theyre able to do what needs to get done. They have a sense of purpose. Theyre saving lives, theyre improving theyre making life easier for the customers. They know why they show up every day. There are high levels of trust in the organization and people have clarity around the roles and responsibilities. Theres a lot of transparency, they know when they are doing a great job. Theyre given recognition and sometimes rewards, but its really the recognition that matters. Then its at the bottom of the list but I probably should have put it on the top they have great managers. Youre never worried that your boss is going to be promoted because you know that whoever else takes his or her place is going to be just as fabulous. I mean, thats huge. Speaking of managers, what I often see is that companies arent really developing their leaders. I do a lot of leadership development, either through executive coaching or training, and I work with leaders who tell me, I dont want to be in management, yet they feel trapped. So first and foremost, I would encourage you to if somebodys not performing well, go to them and say to them, Hey, is this the job you even want? Because we have places for individual contributors. But youre not going to be able to have a magnetic leader when somebody doesnt want to be in leadership. So keep that in mind as youre looking to promote people, because just because theyre anointed leader doesnt mean they want to be leader nor should they be leader based on their length of service. So again, its all about the leadership. At the end of the day, were all in business. Were in business to either make a profit or to serve customers if were in non-profits, but at the end of the day its about the connection with the client, the customer, the patient. Its relationship-based. I dont know about you but I certainly have certain places that I will not return to because of the experience I had when I walked in. Mediocre, consistently. There they are. So keep that in mind. I want to talk for a moment about what I see that keeps companies like yours from moving forward. Its always I hear Well, we dont have the resources, we dont have the money, we dont have the cash. The good news is it doesnt take a wad of cash to attract top talent. How do I know? Because Ive worked with companies who have very small budgets. When I was in the corporate world, I had a very small budget and I managed to find those top people. I hear that people still think that its an employers market when its not. I recently had a conversation with a VP of Operations who kept telling me how much training was costing their organization and how it was draining on company profits. Not once did he talk about the investment as one where he was delivering higher levels of service or retaining good people. So again, I think it was that mindset and Im going to encourage you to stop thinking about expenses and start thinking about investing. Then a lot of times companies are weighed down by low self-esteem. They think, Well, why anyone want to come work for me? My reply would be, Well, they probably wont think everybody knows were so great. Is that everybody within a two-block radius? Within your town? What is your recruiting region? So we find out whether or not you guys think youve got a good handle of the actual cost of employee turnover in your organizations. Lets see if we can get that poll loaded. While were waiting for that to load its here. So let me give you just a moment. Your choices are absolutely, no, or I dont know. The polls are still open but Im going to take another guess here, because Im feeling pretty confident. Im going to guess well, Im not going to tell you what Im going to guess, but Im going to write it down. I usually find that clients thinkfor yourself what your turnover costs, and its quite shocking to most and I think thats why a lot of people dont do this. Lets see, we must be tabulating by now. Well, the poll is ended and Im going to bet that no is the winner here. Thats just my guess, but lets see if you guys can surprise me. Its just another moment. Wow, Im three for three today. 46% of you dont know. You believe that youre not that your company doesnt have a good handle on the cost of employee turnover. And 23 are unsure. Well, to be honest with you, Im a little surprised that the no is as low as it is but Ill just take that as an answer and move on. So lets talk about what really is the cost of employee turnover. Weve got lost knowledge, because when somebody goes through that revolving door, their information goes with them. And in this day and age of flash drives and the Cloud, everything they own goes up and out. Youve got the disruption of the team that youve taken so long to train and now theyre finally working well together, and now youve got somebody whos leaving, maybe two people. That can really be very damaging. You can no longer go after some opportunities because you know you dont have the staff to go get the project or do the work. Your reputation Why does that company always have an ad? Why cant they keep people? Then youll find that its harder and harder to attract candidates because everybody knows, You dont want to go work for XYZ Company. Everyone that goes there leaves within a year. So Im going to ask you to think about that and the assumptions that your new employees will have or what you hope to be your new employees about your company environment. If we look at these costs, youve got the hiring costs that are involved, your recruiters time if you have to pay a third-party recruiter, your time to screen the resumes, having the person in to interview. Youve got the cost if youre lucky to get them of training and developing them in your own processes and then in the meantime while somebodys training and developing them, youre losing productivity because theyre not working to capacity. But the biggest costs are often intangible and thats the relationships that they have with your customers. When they go, those relationships may go and thats the chaos that may go on in the organization, or the loss that may happen, so theres lots and lots of costs here. We go through this exercise so that you can understand why you need to really invest the time in attracting the right people and then when you get them, keeping them. Well, are you losing your magnetic touch? The sign that I see that tells me that this is happening is that people cant get out of your company fast enough. Lets look at what some of those warning signs are. I find that when youre in a company like the one that I described before where it is so quiet you can hear a pin drop, thats the silent killer. Those are the quiet employees because they dont care enough to tell anybody that theres a problem. Theyre going to put their head down, theyre going to do their job, hope nobody notices and theyre going to collect their paycheck, and thats about it. Youll see negative online posts rise and again, you should be checking for that. All of a sudden, your healthy people will be out sick a lot. Youll see customer complaints getting receiving those more rapidly, then youll see customers who used to were with you for 10 years, 15 years, all of a sudden decide to switch to another company. You might notice theres lower quality and productivity. I want to go back to this silent killer. I was talking to someone about this the other day and we kind of joked with each other the fact that her company was so quiet in the cubes. She said to me, Thats because everybodys out interviewing. So thats a little bit alarming. Well, were now into the excuse its you, so try to figure out where have you failed and what could you do differently in the future. Theyre leaving for a better opportunity. I have done enough sourcing thats where you get on the phone and you call up people to entice them to come look at other opportunities to tell you that if someone is happy, chances are very slim that they will take your call. So if theyre leaving for a better opportunity, that means that there was something else going on. If they tell you that they dont have another job, again take a look at the management, and then pull out your especially if theyre in sales, pull out your non-compete agreement to make sure that theyre not going to work for your competitor. I wanted more money well, yeah, who doesnt? Thats another excuse. And my favorite, I wasnt looking. They called me. Thats something to think of the contingent work. Heres what I mean by that. I just got done doing a climate survey for a major organization and we found that it was sunny in sales and it was a little bit cloudy in customer service. Thats going to allow us to really focus on making some significant changes so that people arent leaving for lousy bosses or because theyre feeling unappreciated or their job doesnt really resemble the job that they were told they were going to have. These reasons that I have listed here, these are the reasons why employees really leave and I am sure you could add more to this. So what can you do to stop this from happening? First and foremost, you can take preventive action. We have a tool, its an employee retention self-assessment tool. I always recommend that you give the tool to your employees and you take it as well. In any place where there is a huge gap, a place to start or when theres a low score. Because if youre taking preventive action, you can stop this these people from departing from your organization, which again is less expensive than if youve got to replace everybody. So you can do the self-assessment, you can do an annual employee engagement survey, but more importantly you have to make course corrections. A lot of you on this webinar, you already know whats wrong with your organization so you can survey and confirm, but if theres low hanging fruit here, I would advise you to fix it. Fix it now. And usually starts again with the management, so Im not going to beat that one again. One of the favorite things that I have found is that people are doing what we call stay interviews. In my book Talent Magnetism, theres a story of an advertising CEO who does town hall meetings every time she travels to a new location where her employees are. Another CEO invites employees to breakfast because she wants to hear whats on their mind. Then you can have those moments in the hall, in the parking lot doesnt have to be a formal meeting, but do something. As we wrap up and were going to open it up the lines for some questions, I really want you to think about your company is only as good as the talent you keep. Thats just so important. So your next moves? I have a complimentary employee retention assessment tool and I also have an employee turnover calculator that Im happy to send to you. You can email me and request it at roberta@matuson M-A-T-U-S-O-N consulting.com. Again, happy to send that to you. Make this the year that you do an employee engagement survey. Dont wait. Get out of your own office. Find out whats going on in the field with your people. Then make sure that you are always, always on the hunt for talent. Then make sure that your recruitment team has the resources that they need to get this huge task done. And then lastly, call for a lifeline. If you need some help, give me a call, call an expert just make sure that you do something. So were going to open up the lines and Im happy to answer any questions you may have. If youve got anything that you want to discuss privately, my email is here. Great. Well, thank you, Roberta, for a really wonderful presentation. Im sorry that we have experienced a bit of technical difficulties with Robertas line dropping out intermittently. If you do have any questions that you would like to submit, nows your time to do so. Please use the QA module on your WebEx screen and if youre listening over the phone, Ill ask our operator Lynn to explain to you how you can submit your questions that way. Lynn? Certainly, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge your request. Your line will then be accessed from the conference to obtain information. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the one followed by the three. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before entering your request. Again, for phone questions, please press the one followed by the four. One moment, please, for the first question. Roberta, are you on the line? Yes, I am. Okay, great. We actually had a question come in during your presentation. Would you comment on the importance of executive support for the type of engaging culture that youve been describing in your presentation, and how you can transform executives when that support for that kind of culture isnt present? Well, Ive worked with enough executives to know that its all about dollars and cents. So where I would start if I didnt feel like I had that support is I would pull out those turnover numbers, and then I would take the turnover calculator that Im offering to you and I would calculate the exact cost exactly what its costing your company in terms of turnover because when you see those numbers, in many cases theyre going to be in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, and thats how you get the attention. When its coming out of the executive teams bonuses, because theyre usually based on profitability, when its coming off the share prices, when youre losing great customers, when employees are miserable and productivity is low, when you can show those exact numbers, thats how you get the attention of the executives. Thats a great recommendation. Always about the numbers. Weve had a number of people ask if the presentation, the slides will be available, and the recording, after today, and it certainly will. If youve signed up for the webinar, you will receive an email from with a link to the archived webinar so youll have an opportunity to download these files yourself. Thats great to see, Roberta. Theres a lot of interest in people wanting to download these slides and have them for reference, I think. Lets just take a moment here to check with Lynn to see if theres any questions that have come in via the phone line. We do have a question over the phone. The first question comes from the line of Susan Cayata. Please go ahead. Hi. We are thinking about doing the stay interviews. I know you mentioned that as well. Is that something that an HR representative should be doing or the CEO should be doing? Well, I think its nice to have the CEO do it. If you think about it, that just shows the employees that the CEO is really concerned about what theyre thinking, and it also prevents anything from getting filtered. We all tend to reframe things in our own perspective. So if the employees have the opportunity to meet with the CEO and have those stay interviews, I think that will be lot more effective. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your question. Roberta, another question has come in. Its a good one. How can we as recruiters encourage and engage employees to assist with finding qualified referrals? Well, you have to let them know that everyones in recruiting, you have to give them tools to be a recruiter, and you have to teach them. You also can do an employee referral program which is a great way to get people to refer friends and colleagues. But the thing you have to keep in mind with those programs is that you have to constantly market them internally, because employees will forget, so youll be wondering, Why did you just tell your friend to go work there when we have the same job here? They dont remember that there is an employee referral program unless you remind them. Its interesting. It seems to me, Roberta Im not sure weve said it clearly in the presentation, but it really is like your employees are your customers. Yes, they are. Thank you for bringing that up. Heres another great question what are your recommendations on setting up your interview team? How involved do you get team members compared to your upper management? Well, I think you have to look at it and ask who really needs to be in that room? If Martha, whos on safari, who wont be back for six weeks, whos not even going to interact with this person, isnt supervising this person, does she really need to be on this team of interviewers? Because time is of the essence so you really want to put together a team that is trained, they know what theyre doing, they know what theyre looking for, and they know how to assess talent. Its not just looking at a resume and ticking off the boxes, so youve got to make sure that you have whoever you need on that team and no one else. Thats great. Just want to encourage people, if you do have any questions please use that QA module thats in your WebEx frame here. Lets check again with Lynn to see if there are any other calls that have come in. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on your phone, please press the one followed by the four. Great, thank you. Actually, heres another question, Roberta, thats related to interviewing. Tis person writes, Im not always sure about which candidate to choose after Ive interviewed a number of people, say, four or five top candidates. How can I become more decisive? Well, youve got to really know what youre looking for before you start. Ive had many people come to me after they or have been in a similar situation and say, Oh my gosh. We dont even know which candidate to choose, and thats because they really havent taken the time to figure out what theyre even looking for. Theyre taking somebody elses job description from another company and theyre layering it on top of their own, then they havent given thought to the right kind of person. So its very problematic and creates lots of confusion. Youve got to get clear upfront, know exactly what youre looking for, so that when that person walks in the door, youre like, That is it. Great. Well, weve come to the top of the hour here. A couple of people have asked how they can reach you again. Roberta, if you could just reiterate your contact information quickly? Its roberta@matuson M-A-T-U-S-O-N, consulting.com, or call me at 413-582-1840. Terrific. Well, thank you again, Roberta, for that great presentation. That wraps up our QA session and todays webinar. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. If you were unable to submit a question due to time constraints, well reach out to you after this broadcast. The recording again of this event, recording and the slide presentation, will be available later this week. You can also visit hiring.monster.com and click on the Resource Center tab for more information. Thank you again for joining us today. Bye-bye.