Back in the day when we thought employees needed a stick to motivate them, a probationary period was a decent tool.  It told an employee he was under close scrutiny and if he didn’t do well, he would be let go with no extra pay owed beyond what he earned.

Things have changed and we know that sticks and stones don’t motivate, yet the probationary period persists.  Employers value the cost savings of firing without notice or pay in lieu as long as the employee is within his probationary period. However, that protection is available to employers under the various employment laws in Canada, and can be taken advantage of as long as you articulate the rules of termination in your offer letter. You don’t need to have a probationary period per se, you just need to tell people that if you part ways, you will follow employment laws in paying or providing notice (and then follow through).

Today’s reality is that employees are assessing employers as much as employers are assessing them during the first months of the employment relationship.  Furthermore, probationary periods rarely align with how long it takes to get up to speed in the job and extending probationary periods doesn’t impact the fact that you will have to pay if you fire the person after 3 months nor does it prevent the person from accessing your benefits plan if the waiting period is 3 months.

The way I see it, it is better for employers to convey to new hires that they want them to succeed rather than we are watching to see if you fail.  Probationary periods are outdated and overrated.  If you must call that period of mutual evaluation something, call it an introductory period and recognize it works both ways.

We have empathy for the unsuspecting employee who is given no warning and little performance who suddenly is fired a day or so before the new guy is hired to take over.  It could be us.  I have also seen the poor unsuspecting employee become rightfully pissed off when he recognizes the blind job posting as his own job.  Can you say “backfire”?

If I haven’t convinced you that blind ads are sneaky, another reason to avoid blind ads is that top talent won’t send in an application to an unidentified company. If you have a strong brand you will get a better response rate and better quality of candidates if you identify your company in the recruiting ad.

Ban the blind recruitment ad.  Who is with me?

Retention refers to length of service and lack of turnover. Good retention means you have few people leaving your company.  Retention is evaluated with metrics like voluntary and involuntary turnover (aka layoffs and firings), and retention rates. Good retention usually means lower hiring and training expenses due to fewer replacements, so good retention is something HR teams often put a lot of energy into achieving.

Engagement encompasses a blend of culture, morale and productivity.  We don’t have a perfect “engagement ‘o meter” but companies with good engagement tend to see great participation rates, high morale, strong productivity, and fewer people problems such as interpersonal conflicts or attendance issues.

Interestingly, good engagement usually means you will also have good retention.  You will recognize companies who have success at engaging and retaining employees, because those are the places where you see happy, helpful people; quality products and services; and amazing customer service.

Good retention doesn’t imply good engagement. In fact, many companies that have poor engagement actually have excellent retention – of the wrong people. If you doubt me, think of the last time you waited in a horribly long line up that wasn’t moving.  I can say with a great deal of confidence that the engagement levels of employees in that place were low.  Retention may have been fantastic, but it is a poor measure when the product or service being delivered is terrible, customers are unsatisfied and employees are unhappy.

If I had to pick between engagement and retention, I’d start with engagement.  How about you?

Saying that, after years of slogging in the trenches (it is amazing to me how easily war analogies emerge from the workplace), it is understandable why frustrated and demoralized employees want to lob one of these grenades over at the people who have proven to be their “enemies” for so long.

However, email grenades are and should be a career limiting move. They are never a constructive way to put forward an idea or argument, even if the idea or argument proves to be right in the long run. While these verbose bombs clearly indicate the presence of anger and often a sense of helplessness or lack of options on the part of the sender, don’t be surprised if observers of an email grenade in action will perceive the sender to have:

• Lost touch with reality
• No common sense
• Anger management issues
• Poor communication skills
• Lost their employ-ability
• A serious lack of self control
• Damaged the trust and relationships with observers and receivers of the email grenade
• All of the above

I’ll talk more about what to do about an email bomber in the next blog, but in the meantime, if you’ve ever sent or received an email grenade, we’d love to hear more.

The obvious solution is to make the temp feel part of the team; however, do you really want to invest in a temp or involve them in team building activities when there is a very low probability that they will be there down the road?

As with much in HR, the answer to that question depends a lot on the situation you are in, but here are things to consider when deciding the right approach for your business:

1. How long will the “temp” be there? If it is a day or two, it likely doesn’t matter much what you do, and in fact, I know organizations who use the opportunity to get all their grunt work done and leave the temp “in charge” while they take employees out for a well deserved team meal.  But if the person will be there 6-12+ months, and you don’t want to have someone unhappy and unmotivated, then it might be a good idea to include him or her in the teambuilding activities.
2. How important is team work? If the person will be there awhile and team work is important or everyone needs to be on the same page to have the best productivity, then training the temp and involving the temp in the meetings and discussions is really valuable and a small price to pay in the face of what you will gain when the sum of the parts (including the temp) is working at top potential.
3. How well do you communicate internally? If you are an organization that does a great job of communicating, you might be able to get away with less hand-holding or less effort at team-building and engagement.  If you aren’t the best at remembering to get your message out to your employees normally, then your temp will probably feel even more isolated and lost than your employees because no one remembers to tell a temp anything.

If you want to share how your company treats temps and interim workers, please comment.

• Acquire 1/5th of my new clients from outside of BC, e.g., Alberta, Ontario, International, etc.
• Speak at 6 new locations or events

While I have these types of goals for 2012 as well, I have also developed a goal that is a bit different for me because it is all about internal improvement rather than external achievement.  For 2012 and beyond, my self improvement goal is to

Be thankful for my gifts, blessings, and joys every day.

It sounds easy, but having tried and failed a few times, I am working out a strategy for how to make it happen this time.

What works for you to ensure you meet your goals? What types of goals do you have: External achievements or Internal improvements? Vote here and see what other people are doing.

This makes sense if you believe that the “holiday season” is all about Peace, Love, and Joy and families best embody those energies.

At least that is the theory, but over and over again when the conversation develops beyond small talk, I hear about the guilt surrounding the holidays.  Guilt about whose house to stay at or visit, guilt for who gets the kids, guilt over who cooks, who cleans, who shops, who wraps, who eats, what gets drunk, and the list goes on and on.

My wish for the holidays is:

No matter what or how you celebrate, enjoy more Peace, Love & Joy over the holidays.

Like other feelings, guilt only grows when it is fed.  Choose what you nurture wisely.

This is our final blog of 2011 and we hope you come back in 2012 for our business focused HR perspective.

All the best to you and yours from Love HR.

Being in HR, I have witnessed the ballooning costs of benefit programs primarily due to drugs associated with the big 4 diseases: heart attack, stroke, diabetes and cancer.  While lack of exercise and poor sleep habits are also involved, there is no question that poor diet choices are a MAJOR contributor to those diseases and definitely the lowest hanging ham, I mean fruit, when it comes to taxability. I mean how do you track let alone tax someone for sleeping too little, especially in a society that values working hard the way we do in North America.  Same goes for exercise, which is unfortunate, because according to Dr. Mike Evans (healthcare expert) exercise makes the biggest difference and gives you the greatest return on investment in your health.

In any case, a consumption tax on fatty foods may cause some people to buy or use just that little bit less. That’s good news, because when it comes to health, every little bit helps and it might result in some extra money in government coffers that will hopefully be put towards the medical bills for those diseases.

If you are an employer, you don’t have the option of a tax to raise money for your benefits costs, so you have to be more creative.  Wellness programs (if well planned) can improve your employees’ health, attendance, productivity, and morale, and measurably reduce your benefits costs which is a fine return on investment indeed.

If you want to know how to introduce a wellness program in 2012, we can help.  If you already have a wellness program, please comment about what works and what doesn’t.

Each organization is structured and operated differently, and as such, there are an infinite number of variations in what HR departments do for businesses.  A laundry list of typical HR duties may include:

• hiring,
• orienting,
• managing employee information,
• analyzing and evaluating jobs,
• compensating and recognizing,
• coaching and providing confidential advice,
• creating and implementing guidelines,
• ensuring compliance with employment laws,
• managing contractual promises to employees,
• overseeing a safe & healthy work environment,
• collective bargaining,
• managing employee and labour relations,
• training and developing,
• handling conflict,
• disciplining, and
• supporting the end of the employment relationship.

These activities are all fairly transactional and don’t necessarily result in the most important responsibility of a good HR resource which is to create the organizational environment that will attract, keep, and motivate the people to help the business succeed.

Beyond the HR activities listed, truly strategic HR function will focus on connecting with the people and building organizational capability.

Connecting with the people

It is vital for your HR resource to be constantly connecting with all levels of the organization.  Connecting involves two way communication and multiple tools and methods to ensure the important messages and themes are being heard by and resonating with the employees and in turn, to bring back insights and feedback to ensure the organization has good intelligence about employees’ wants and needs.  In doing so, HR is not only the barometer of culture and morale, but also a resource for what is needed to make improvements and get closer to the goals laid out.

Building organizational capability

Building capability involves a web of activities that ensure you have the right people in the right jobs at the right time to ensure the organization can meet its goals, and in the 21st century organization, I would add that HR accomplishes those objectives economically, efficiently, and with an eye on social responsibility.

Now more than ever before, the playing field is level amongst other resources (e.g., finances, technology, equipment), and people (leaders and employees) make the difference between #1 and a distant 2nd. In this environment, HR has the opportunity of a lifetime to truly make a difference in your organization. Don’t settle for anything less.

Consider saving a copy or two for your company library and allowing employees to borrow them. The greater the knowledge bank in your organization, the greater opportunity you have to attract people interested in learning.

Other options include building your own Wiki with webinars, white papers, and websites, etc. that become your resource centre, training ground, and knowledge management tool all in one.  Too often I see companies giving their knowledge sources away to employees and when employees leave, they take it all with them. I am not saying don’t give knowledge.  I am just saying that you should try to ensure you have a resource centre so more than one person benefits and the knowledge has less chance of leaving one day.