HRevolution

Is there really a labor shortage or have we simply accepted chronic, pervasive underemployment? My point is that if we fully engaged people on the job, we would harness a lot more energy and productivity from our existing workforce. But with our current approach to job design and our assembly-line approach to work, we get only a small portion of what people have to offer. We seem unable to fully engage people in their work. Far too many people punch in physically and check out mentally. We may or may not be in a labor shortage, but we are certainly wasting human capital. You know those studies that show we only use about ten percent of our brain? If comparable studies were done on our workforce, we'd probably learn we're only using half of whats available.

The ability to fully engage a person creates leverage by taking a small amount money and focusing an entire person on a task. When we fail to engage someone, we fail to leverage them. When we succeed, we get more involvement, better decisions, and people taking ownership of tasks. We get better results for the business as a whole. We promote people who do this. We also (mistakenly) think it's a rare trait when we seek it in employees. We ignore the possibility that our job design, with inherently narrow descriptions, structures out these traits and engulfs employees in repetitive, boring work.

What does it take to wake up a generation of managers? When will they realize most of us have the capacity to do so much more than the narrow slot into which we've been fitted?

Further, as engagement is widely recognized as key to success (ask any manager), why is it not measured? It seems obvious that an engagement index for an organization would be useful in gauging the productive capacity of it's workforce.

Insofar as we believe we "manage" human capital, it seems presumptuous to do so without focusing on a worker's level of engagement as the central factor to be managed. How long can we afford to remain inefficeint (read: stupid) with our human capital in an increasingly competitive global economy?

My best hires have always been those willing to take ownership in their work. These people excel. In addition to screening for this tendency in selection processes, we also develop it in our department. I don't believe the ability to take ownership is a tendency limited to a chosen few, though it may be closer to the surface for some. We have had a lot of success with it.

So, how do we create an ownership mentality? We begin by spreading responsibility. We extend people's jobs to include results, and with those results we add rewards, including stock options - literal ownership - that are distributed as widely as I can possibly justify. We encourage people to take ownership by giving them ownership. It's that simple. I still can't see why this isn't the norm.

Speaking of ownership, in an earlier post (Salary Compression, May 8th), I mention encouraging ownership by way of spreading the wealth through bonus programs. This is feasible without dilution to shareholders when greater wealth is created. The bet is that engaged employees create more value for shareholders even when participating in a larger reward system (especially when the rewards include stock options). Oh, and ownership works really well in flat organizations. They naturally expand responsibility across people and levels in ways other structures cannot.

It's no different than the bet an entrepreneur makes when taking venture capital. They'll take a haircut on the percentage of ownership, anticipating they'll make more money owning a smaller piece of the (now larger) venture.

I've just read a post where the writer advocates writing accurate job descriptions to ensure applicants aren't disappointed with their jobs. Here it is:

"I know this article is going to be controversial because businesses that rely on employer and recruiters are very reluctant to admit, that the customer isn’t always right. If employers do not put what they are looking for accurately in the job description they can’t expect to find it. It is like going on a road trip through New York State with a map of Arizona. Good luck.

In my experience as the President and Founder of several online career centers and an HR Consulting company, the vast majority of disappointed employers tend to complain about the unqualified applicants who apply to their jobs. However, the root of the problem is really the unclear job posting. The employers complain that the unqualified candidates who apply to their jobs are wasting their time but in fact it is them who are wasting the candidate’s time. All of the articles I read in the marketplace are for candidates helping them write cover letters, format their resumes and conduct a job search. Nobody does anything to help the employer with writing a clear job description.

The job description should include the following:
1) Brief Description Of The Company
2) Accurate Job Role and Task Description
3) Clear Directives Of Mandatory Requirements, Licenses, Skills or Years Of Experience
4) How, When And On What Criteria The Employer Will Follow Up With The Candidate.

Title is important as well, it should include the following:
1) Job Title
2) Level Of Job (Senior, Junior, CEO Etc)
3) Geography City & State/Province"

The author leaves his contact info in case we need to hire him. I find it odd that this advice appears on Collegerecruiter.com where I assume the emphasis is on entry level recruiting. Getting a job description right, as the author suggests is sound practice. But to those hiring entry-level people, following his prescribed format has limited utility. Job descriptions are written by insiders - people familiar with the company, the job's surrounding roles, and the industry. The reader is an outsider. The entry-level applicant is an uber-outsider. They know little about any company, and even less about yours.

Clarifying your job description for the college market means translating it from corporate speak into terms they can understand. For example, the corporate norm "the position has 5 direct reports" is very different from "responsible for the production of 5 people, and at our company supervisors act more like a resource than a boss." Its surprising how entry-level people respond when you do it right. Its worth the time testing different approaches as you hone your message for a specific audience.

While I'm at it, let's take the critique beyond entry-level. Job descriptions can do only so much to describe a job. Again, the writer is an insider and can relate the elements to a world not described in the job description. For example, some companies have lots of titles. Others have very few. I worked at a company that had only 3 or 4 titles and when you hit "manager" it meant a great deal, as there were only VPs and a president above you. When I left there, I went to a company where "manager" described the entry-level role. The job description writer takes such things for granted. The reader has no insight. In my experience, the best you can do is try to make the job description brief and accurate. You simply cannot presume you can convey your understanding of a role in a job description. Simply outline it accurately, and get on with the business of recruiting.

Remember, recruiting is a contact sport. Keep the job description simple and spend your time making contact.