9 of the Best Workforce Predictions for 2012

January 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Workforce Predictions for 2012

1. Skills Gap -We not only face a quantitative shortage of skilled workers but an imbalance between needed and available skills is making hiring difficult. A study by SHRM and others in late 2010 showed that only 32 percent of U.S. college graduates have "excellent" skills as they enter the working world and only 16 percent of high-school graduates have such skills. Young people are less prepared than ever, forcing employers to adopt new online recruiting strategies, new employee screening processes, new hire training including basic reading and math literacy, improved apprenticeships and mentoring programs, and other on-the-job training and development programs to build skills. 2. Résumé Overload (the Resu-mess) - The number of job … [Read more...]

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3 Reasons Companies Must Engage Workers

December 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Employee engagement assessment test

The need to engage workers, not just pay them, is a popular topic. Just type "employee engagement" into Google and you'll quickly come up with nearly 6 million results. Type in "how to engage workers" and you'll get over 73 million responses. It's obvious a lot of people are seeking answers and even more offering help. But somewhere there is a disconnect between knowing what a company must do and what they do in practice. Why the gap? Engaging employees, especially top performers, is hard work. It requires managers to show sincere appreciation and continuous feedback to their workers. Management must create a culture of trust and hope. It's not easy in today's world of global competition and economic instability. But those companies that … [Read more...]

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Why DISC Dosen’t Work for Employee Screening.

November 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
DISC Assessment Test for HR Screening

First of all, DISC has been around a long, long time. While the acronym DISC was adopted sometime in the mid-twentieth century, the four-style behavioral model was first described by Hippocrates somewhere around 400 B.C. If longevity has anything to do with credibility, the DISC assessment certainly has time on its side and centuries of endorsement. Another reason is that DISC is also one of the most user-friendly assessments available. Most DISC assessments require only 10 to 15 minutes to complete, the questions are very easy to understand, and face validity (which means the participant agrees with the results of the assessment) is extremely high. And while fees vary widely, the cost is generally below $100, often times significantly … [Read more...]

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The Loss of jobs vs. The Loss of Jobs

November 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Depending on your frame of reference, asking the question "can the U.S. survive without Jobs?" will elicit a variety of responses. Responses will inevitably be influenced by political affiliation but my question is much broader than that. Because jobs refer to both sluggish job creation and the tragic loss of Steve Jobs. Both circumstances pose an ominous threat to our role as leader of the free world. Solutions to replace the innovative genius of Jobs and jump start sustainable job creation will remain elusive for some time to come. Let me start with Steve Jobs. Jobs changed our lives forever, much like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. Jobs didn't invent the personal computer, the mouse, or the graphical user interface … [Read more...]

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6 Signs War for Talent is Heating Up

October 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Winning The Talent War

The jobs are out there. Companies just can't find the workers to fill them. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports that 3.2 million jobs remained vacant as of the end of July, even as 14 million Americans were jobless. This paradox was highlighted in an article posted in the recent issue of Central Penn Business Journal. The article includes several interviews with local business executives whose growth is stymied by a lack of qualified workers, not a struggling economy. One owner, whose tool-and-die company doubled in size in the last three years, says he posts jobs in the newspaper and online job banks to no avail. Other executives echoed the challenge especially those leading manufacturing firms in heavy industry, food … [Read more...]

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How Safe Are Personality Tests?

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
How Safe Are Workplace Personality Tests

Many people still believe personality tests are illegal and that their use exposes an employer to more risk. But a new research paper titled Legal Risk in Selection: An analysis of processes and tools presented at the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology conference dispels many of the lingering myths associated with using personality and other employee tests. The research findings reviewed EEOC and OFCCP cases settled both in and out of court between 1998 and 2010. Two key areas were covered: (1) type of selection test and (2) the hiring process. Based on the findings, personality and other psychometric tests do carry some risk. But in nearly every case, the challenge did not involve the validity or reliability of the test … [Read more...]

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Personal Styles That Bias Performance Reviews.

September 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
DISC Personality and Behavior Assessment Profile

Performance reviews, one of the most dreaded managerial responsibilities, are difficult enough to do without personal bias getting in the way. What follows are highlights about how your personal style, identified using the DISC behavioral model, might get in the way of effectively managing your employees. "D"s prefer to evaluate others by how well they meet the standards and challenges set forth by the "D." The amount of work accomplished by others must meet the "D's" expectations. They tend to set demanding standards for themselves and will seek out who do likewise. However, they will become impatient when employees don't do what was expected and even more competitive when people surpass them. They tend to set stretch goals. When an … [Read more...]

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So Much Free Advice Available, Why Are Interviews So Ineffective?

September 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
How To Interview Job Applicants

Creating an effective employer interview question guide is a necessity for hiring qualified workers. But a simple search for the phrase "interview question guide" turns up 60,200,200 Google results in only 0.14 seconds.  With such an ample supply of free advice, why are employee interviews so ineffective at employee screening and employee selection? The problem with most employee interviews is that the wrong questions can elicit persuasive but unpredictive candidate responses that influence managers to hire them. There are two types of wrong questions.  First, you have the illegal questions - the questions you can't ask.  Federal and some state law explicitly prohibit asking specific questions about age, gender, race, ethnicity, … [Read more...]

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Sales Personality Traits Draw A Fine Line Between Success and Failure

September 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Sales Personality Personality Test

Not all salespeople are successful. Given the same experience and education, why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? Is it motivation? Product knowledge? Evidence suggests that key personality traits directly influence a top performers' selling style and ultimately their success. What follows is a list of my findings after reviewing thousands of sales personality tests and post-hire discussions with clients. Collaborative - A fine line exists between confidence and bravado, ambition and selfishness. Ego and greed are two sales personality traits that don't mix well with clients. While there is no question that the salesperson who believes "that second place is the first place for losers" can be successful, that's a tough … [Read more...]

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18+ Surprising Things That 18-Year-Olds Find Normal

September 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
College

No matter how much I try, I'm amazed each August when the Beloit College Mindset List is released. And this year's list for the Class of 2015 is no exception. The list has been compiled since 1998 by Beloit's former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief and Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride. Coincidentally, they just released a new book The Mindset Lists of American History and the subtitle says it all: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal. Originally intended to remind college professors that their students are from a different generation not a distant planet, the list is an intriguing, and sometimes cruel, reminder that we're getting older. "We" for this example includes … [Read more...]

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New Research: Pre Employment Tests Drive Business Results in 4 Key Areas

August 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If your company is like most businesses, your operations, marketing, and sales efforts could be improved. That is where personality and other pre-employment testing come in. Improvement and high performance requires employees who can increase revenues, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and lead effectively. The process for achieving these goals begins with hiring and promoting the right people. This is accomplished only when your employees have the skills your company needs, the ability to use them, and traits to perform consistently at a high level. A recent white paper highlights this direct linkage between hiring the right  people and four critical outcomes: revenues, costs, efficiency, and leadership. According to the report … [Read more...]

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Millennials: Are the Trophy Kids Getting a Bad Rap?

August 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Trophy Kids

Sensationalism in the media and countless books (including my own) about differences between the generations paint a picture about the emerging Millennials that might be more myth than right. Today's workforce is comprised of Baby Boomers (born 1945-1965), Generation X (born 1965-1980) and Millennials. There are more than 80 million Millennials, also called Generation Y in the U.S. alone and while many of them are already in the workforce, the rest are on the verge of entering it. For those of you who still get confused between Gen Y, Gen WHY, Generation Y, and the Millennials, here's a reminder: These titles all describe the same group of young adults and teens born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. They have also been … [Read more...]

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