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Let's look at the relationship that a person has with his company over time. In particular, I'm interested in the psychotic (channeling Christopher Walken) relationship we have with our people. Shall we review?
In the recruiting process, we tell lies, half-truths while with some candidates, we might even be genuine. It is similar to a dating process, where we don't tell the whole truth. For example, after about 10 years into my marriage, my wife was shocked to learn that I know all the lyrics to almost every George Strait song. Truth is I hid that little nugget from my fiance. But let's get back to the story at hand. Just like in a romantic relationship, we lie when we recruit. We want them to love us and, thus, we tend to tell candidates anything they want to hear. Again, not the way it should be, but thats how it is with 98 per cent of us.
As employees, we tend to tell them the truth… or at least a version of the truth (channeling Jack Nicholson). Continuing the dating / marriage metaphor, once hired, your employees are now married to your firm. Think about how conversations are different once they've signed the onboarding paperwork and after they have quit the company.
If we can objectively evaluate ourselves, let us all pressure test some points in our global HR process: How we onboard people?
How we offboard people?
How do we actually (reality versus academic) treat people in the process?
What's the soul of our conversations?
Here are some ideas: Onboarding should take a week, maybe even two, not because we're ineffective, but to the contrary because we care enough to enable people for long-term success with our firm. We need to have a lot of conversations with our new employees - everything we didn't talk about while they were candidates - we need to cover all that stuff… of course, in theory, I'd rather we push some of that content in to the recruiting phase.
Also, I think every firm should have an alumni network. Created and maintained by HR for anyone that passed through the pearly gates of gainful employment with our firm. Every company should have a forum for ex-employees to gather, reminisce, connect maybe even boomerang.
Let me leave you with this thought. For a moment, imagine you are a waiter / waitress at a fine dining establishment. Over the course of a year, a family of five visits your quality establishment. They ask for and are promptly seated in your section each and every time they visit. With three of those experiences, you don't lie per se, but you don't tell the truth as to what the restaurant is really good at. Now consider, if you are brutally honest with the family… read: "avoid anything that isn't green…" or "we're being investigated for salmonella…" Real talk for real people. And, lastly, suppose if you're a mean. You really just want the family of five to visit another restaurant. Nine different experiences… inconsistent, right? If you agree, then why would it be okay for us to have inconsistency with our conversations with candidates, with employees and/or with our alumnus?
The author is William Tincup, principal analyst at KeyInterval Research. Re-printed with permission.
Link: https://www.linkedin. com/pulse/lover-accomplice-toilet-bowl-william-tincup?trk=prof-post
