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I was interviewing the other day for an open position in our company and was reminded about how critical it is to do two things:

 Get the right people "on the bus" (A concept from Jim Collins' book "Good to Great") and use a disciplined and thorough approach to the interviewing and hiring process.

 We were down to two candidates and I was leaning toward one of them. Why?  I liked her and she would be reporting to me.

 Fortunately, we did several good things in our interviewing and hiring process;

I was glad we put the time and effort into this process. Both candidates tested well, but our group discussions allowed us to get well beyond impact and personality and our reference checks provided important information to add to the mix.

The bottom line is that we hired the right candidate -- not the one I was leaning toward. It took more time than we would have liked, but it was worth it.

We designed our program Mosaic®: The ART of Talent Leadership as a leadership development program to help managers embrace and stay ocused on their critical accountabilities to hire, retain and develop great employees for the organization. The program also arms learners with best practices around each of these accountabilities.  In the area of "attracting"  employees, learners explore the importance of three components of the process: sourcing, hiring and onboarding. When all three are done well, the right people get on the bus -- and are fully engaged from the start.

So, next on my list for our new hire?  Onboarding.

 

• What is it about the offering that could be exciting to your learners? 
• What will they be able to do differently after the session and how is that going to benefit them? (Think about it from their perspective, not yours.)
• What have others in the company said about the program that could generate peer interest? 
• What will happen during the program that will be enjoyable, interesting or engaging? 
• Why should they want to take the time to attend … and, by the way, how much time will it take?

• Use more than one approach. Choose the two or three most probable ways to get your learner’s attention. Consider emails, posters, internal web sites, twitter, video ads and more. Your messages don’t have to be complicated, but they do need to grab attention.
• Use testimonials from learners who have gone through sessions. Let them tell others about their experiences and results. What about a quick video snippet that is sent to potential learners?
• Use both visual and audio marketing, not just text.  Powerful videos and audio ads --- which can be produced and delivered inexpensively --  can get the attention that you need. Even adding color or pictures to session announcements can help.
• Don’t be so serious.  Lighten up the message and focus on getting learners excited.
• Start early.  Create a “buzz” long before you announce the dates.

In addition to some great information about HR professionals playing increasingly important roles in their companies’ strategic decisions—as detailed in “State of the Union in HR”, a recent survey commissioned by HRToolbench and Arbita—there’s one other juicy, related detail:

 

Some 61 percent of the survey’s respondents are highly likely or likely to be focused this year on enhancing their internal communications to help build employee commitment and understanding.

 

This is a perpetual HR responsibility—having employees absorb and retain information about strategies, procedures, initiatives and more—but it isn’t difficult. Start with a simple truth: Traditional methods such as memos, newsletters, lectures and PowerPoint presentations DO NOT WORK. They’re too passive to be effective.

 

So try an active approach instead. When employees are engaged in the learning process, they take information to heart. That’s why discovery learning is such a beautiful thing. By immersing people into situations that mimic real-world complexities—using games, simulations and Discovery maps —and allowing them to rely on their own experience and knowledge to reach a conclusion, lessons come alive. Rather than having information force-fed to them, learners happily consume and process information at their own pace and in their own way.

 

Think of discovery learning as a salad bar of knowledge—there’s a lot to take in and everything is good for you, but the experience is enjoyable and you leave satisfied. (OK, maybe this analogy appeals to me because it’s lunch time as I write this, but you get the idea.)

 

By the way, that 61-percent figure seems surprisingly low. HR professionals have a lot of communication work awaiting them in this rollercoaster economy. Fortunately, getting employees aware of—and receptive to—key messages is not the impossible task they might think it is, if they’re using the right approach.

One surprising effect of the recession: It has created an excellent opportunity for HR professionals to shine in the eyes of company executives. Business leaders are relying on their HR departments more than ever before for insight as they make tough decisions about job cuts, strategic planning and more.

 

We came across a recent report commissioned by HRToolbench and Arbita, titled “State of the Union in HR”. The survey of 400 HR professionals at companies of varying sizes has many interesting findings, not the least of which is this: Some 74 percent of the respondents indicated they’re highly likely or likely to be engaged in helping managers define performance expectations this year.

 

But are they ready for the challenge? Most HR professionals, while highly trained and skilled, do not have financial backgrounds. The expectations being placed upon them require strong business acumen in order to deliver informed recommendations. They need to know how their companies make and spend money—truly understanding the way business works—if they’re going to be effective, credible and confident.

 

This is the perfect time for HR professionals to demonstrate their value as “business partners” and obliterate the outdated notion that they exist in a “support” capacity. Without the proper foundation, however, the stereotype will persist. Every company with elevated expectations of its HR department should make sure its HR people can meet the challenge by giving them the business foundation they need. It’s not only fair—it’s essential to the survival of the business, as the survey trends clearly show.

Just before the holidays, I had the pleasure of working with Daniel Pink on a Training Magazine-hosted webinar entitled "A Whole New Workforce: Educating and Engaging Employees in a Right-Brain World."

 

For those of you who don't know Dan's work, I strongly encourage you to read his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In it he gives an overview of the importance of right-brain thinking in our modern economy and describes the six abilities that individuals and organizations must master to compete in an outsourced, automated world. It will certainly make you think about the ways our world is changing and the implications of these changes for our organizations, our employees and ourselves.

 

I first met Dan when he spoke several years ago to ISA, The Association of Learning Providers. In a high-energy, thought-provoking presentation, he addressed the need for educational suppliers to understand the implications of his research and conclusions as we design programs and services for our clients. His ideas resonated very strongly with me and reinforced Paradigm Learning's commitment to discovery learning as our foundational design methodology.

 

One of the six aptitudes that Dan explores in his book, for example, is the idea of "story." "Story represents a pathway to understanding that doesn't run through the left side of the brain," he says, adding that stories provide "context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters."

 

In all the business simulations that we've designed over the years, we use a story to engage learners in the experience, to move the learning along a path of discovery and to help promote long-term retention. In Zodiak^®: The Game of Business Finance and Strategy, for example, small teams of learners buy Zodiak Industries — a good company, but one that is not growing or keeping pace with the competition. As the story unfolds, the new owners make strategic decisions — about raising prices, investing in new equipment, adding new products, changing payment terms — that impact the top and bottom lines. The story is fun and engaging, but most important, it simulates a "real" company and helps learners see and feel the impact of decisions and actions over a period of three years. The ah-ha's are many, and the story is one that learners will remember as they return to their jobs.

 

Another of the six aptitudes is symphony. Dan defines this as "the ability to put together the pieces... to synthesize rather than to analyze, to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields, to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers."

 

Designing ways for learners to grasp the big picture is always a critical consideration for us, whether we are developing our products or working with clients on custom projects such as Discovery Maps®. We use visuals, simulations, games and other experiential learning activities to build toward a holistic understanding — a symphony — of learning content. When managers and employees grasp the bigger context, they are more likely to act in ways that are in sync with the organization's strategies.

 

I hope that you'll take some time to view our webinar or to read Dan's book. For those of us in the learning industry — whether as suppliers or as organizational learning professionals — I believe that Dan's research and conclusions can guide us to develop training and communication programs that help employees think and act in more conceptual and creative ways.

 

PS. Dan has just released his latest book, called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. More food for thought as we develop and retain employees!