Behavioural Interviewing 101

Many progressive human resources managers favour behavioural interviewing.  It works on the premise that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations.  Accordingly, it structures questions to determine whether the candidate has actually demonstrated the behaviours, knowledge, and skills required for a job, often beginning questions with phrases like "Tell me about a time ..." or "Describe a situation ..."

So, for example, if you're looking for a strong people motivator, you might say:  "Tell me about an occasion when you took the time to share a subordinate's achievement's with others."  Or if you're seeking problem-solving or time-management skills, you might ask respectively:  "In your last job, what problems did you identify and solve that had been overlooked previously?"; or "How do you set priorities when scheduling your time?  Give examples."

"How" questions like the last one, requiring candidates to explain in detail how they did something, can be especially revealing, because appropriate answers demonstrating experience, skills, and knowledge are nearly impossible to fake.

Mentoring + HR management + automation = great customer service

Further to my last post on mentoring, I appreciate small-business/start-up consultant Greg Meyer’s keep-it-simple take on the same subject in his recent article on improving customer service for WordOfMouth.org.  Mr. Meyer writes:  

“Find out what high-performing team members are doing and ask them to teach that idea to the rest of the team.”

His other sound ideas include:

“Finding the right people who are capable of delivering great service is much easier than training people who don’t want to deliver above-and-beyond service.”  

My additional two cents on human resources:  your own workplace observations and behavioural interview questions will show you respectively which prospective job candidates and which of your staff members are most capable of providing your clients with excellent service.  

(For more information on behavioural interview questions, please see my following post dated 10 December/12.  http://vicg8hr.blogspot.ca/2012/12/behavioural-interviewing-101_10.html)   

Mr. Meyer also advises:

“Be open to the idea of new tools. Often the team member who delivers the most WOW is someone who has discovered a way to automate their everyday tasks so that they can focus on the end goal of delighting customers.”

 You can read the full text of his article, “A guide to becoming a WOW-maker”, at:

http://wordofmouth.org/blog/a-guide-to-becoming-a-wow-maker

Resources on the crucial topic of mentoring

After my blog post of 27 October 2011, I’m happy to see that Deborah Corn of PrintMediaCentr is dedicating a blog series to the incredibly important topic of professional mentorship, in this case from a printing-industry perspective. http://vicg8hr.blogspot.ca/2011/10/please-share-your-experiences-regarding.html

In the first installment, Chris Echevarria, Customer Experience Center Manager at Océ North America, outlines her experience with a formally instituted corporate mentorship program and such basic mechanics as how many mentors to have at once (she says several are feasible) and how often to contact them (at least once each quarter works for her).  http://printmediacentr.com/who-needs-a-mentor/

In case the importance of mentoring hasn't crossed your radar screen, an on-line blurb for David Clutterbuck’s 2004 book Everyone Needs a Mentor: Fostering Talent in Your Organisation spells out just how essential it is:  “Mentoring is the most cost efficient and sustainable method of fostering and developing talent within your organisation. Talented employees can be stretched to perform even better by exposure to high performing colleagues. Experience can be passed on more effectively one-to-one. Employees from groups that are under-represented in the organisation can be supported and developed by talking to others who have overcome similar barriers.”  http://books.google.ca/books/about/Everyone_Needs_a_Mentor.html?id=4OYegB6lbQAC&redir_esc=y

The many other practical resources on mentoring available on the Internet include:

1. Kristin Burnham’s 2011 article for CIO, examining why women aren’t reaching their full potential through mentorship and offering tips on how they can find and initiate fruitful mentoring relationships. http://www.cio.com/article/692472/LinkedIn_Tip_Why_You_Need_a_Mentor_and_How_to_Find_One

2. Amy Barrett’s 2007 article for BloombergBusinessweek Magazine on Why You Need A Mentor:  http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-02-25/why-you-need-a-mentor

3.    Reg Pirie’s 2000 take on the nature of an effective mentoring relationship for CanadaOne:  http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/aug00/mentors.html

4.  I’ve also posted a few of the many printed and e-books available on this important topic to the Reading List on my LinkedIn Profile at:  http://www.ca.linkedin.com/in/vicg8                     

Printer MPP Joe Dickson says Ontario's workforce needs foreign professionals

Although yesterday's post discusses immigration from the federal government's perspective, Joe Dickson, Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament representing the riding of Ajax-Pickering and President of Dickson Printing Ltd., says that integrating foreign professionals into the workforce is a priority for his provincial government as well.

When we spoke at length about a year ago, Mr. Dickson (shown at left) said Ontario needs to place more qualified foreign professionals in sectors of the economy that are experiencing chronic vacancies for skilled positions.  His fear is that, if the government does not take steps to alleviate the situation, "companies here will have a manpower shortfall or even lose the work to other parts of the world."

For details, see the third- and second-last paragraphs on page 33 of my article "Popular MPP Printer" in the December-2011 issue of Printaction.   
https://www.box.net/s/ndbitjxxd9l2au5e6y7b

Immigration Minister says new system makes it easier for foreign professionals to have credentials recognized in Canada

Further to my post of 30 September 2011, in a report in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed that his government is making “profound” changes to Canada’s immigration system in anticipation of escalating competition from other developed nations for skilled immigrants. 
http://vicg8hr.blogspot.ca/2011/10/hot-hr-election-issues.html

Canada currently admits between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents a year.  For decades it has been one of only about half a dozen countries worldwide to allow immigration.  (The others include the United States, Australia, and Israel.)  But now other industrialized countries are opening their doors to immigrants to compensate for the reduced growth and aging demographics of their domestic populations. 

In the face of this rising global competition, Mr. Harper says Canada must improve its process for targeting and selection to ensure that it attracts sufficient numbers of immigrants, as well as people with the most desirable skills, expertise, and investment capacity. Mr. Harper describes his Conservative government's changes to the immigration system as shifting from a system that merely receives applications and processes them on a first-come-first-serve basis to a more proactive one that chooses people based on the country’s priorities and how much the applicants can benefit Canada. 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-needs-to-get-competitive-to-attract-skilled-immigrants-harper/article5179369/ 
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/11/12/fundamental-change-on-immigration/

Mr. Harper’s statements come soon after three further developments affecting Canadian immigration practices:  The first is that Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney (shown at right), announced earlier this month that the backlog of skilled immigrant applications, which has clogged the system for years, is declining rapidly and will be eliminated by the end of 2013.  Mr. Kenney said about 100,000 applications are still in the system, down from 640,000 just a few years ago.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/11/02/pol-kenney-backlog-skilled-workers.html

The second development occurred last week, when Mr. Harper’s government launched a review of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker program, which brings some 200,000 temporary workers into Canada each year from foreign countries.  The review was prompted by controversy following the government’s decision to hire hundreds of Chinese nationals through the program to work in British Columbian mines.  Criticisms of the program include that it lets foreigners take jobs away from Canadians and creates a second class of labourers that puts a downward pressure on wages.  (In October, unemployment in Canada remained at 7.4 percent, following two consecutive months of increases.)

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Exclusive+Canada+foreign+worker+program+reviewed+after+hiring+Chinese+coal+miners/7520003/story.html

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/unemployment-rate

The third development, also announced earlier this month by Mr. Kenney, is a revamped points system to assess people who apply for immigration.  Schedule to take effect in 2013, the revised system will place new emphasis on having employers invite immigrants into the country and place them in jobs on arrival.  It also includes pre-assement of overseas applicants based on their education, prior Canadian work experience, age, and English or French language skills. The Conservatives’ current immigration system already treats temporary workers from foreign counties who have obtained Canadian work experience as one of the best prospects to enlist as new immigrants, because they have already proven they can integrate into Canadian society and meet the country’s labour-market needs.  

To date, discussions sparked on LinkedIn by the Globe’s Saturday report seem to emphasize the disparity between the public image of Canada as a land of golden opportunity for newcomers versus the reality that skilled immigrants may encounter upon arrival in this country, when they may find themselves severely underemployed.* 

Mr. Kenney says the recent immigration reforms were devised with exactly this disparity in mind: "I don't think we're being true to our reputation as a land of opportunity by inviting engineers to come here and come and drive cabs, or medical doctors to come here and be night watchmen or convenience store clerks," he comments. 

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/11/08/new-points-system-for-immigrants-coming-in-2013
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp

http://www.cicsnews.com/
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/2012-08-17.asp
http://2vancouver.com/en/blog/new-skilled-worker-skilled-trades-and-canadian-experience-class
http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/canada-to-reduce-skilled-worker-immigration.html

*   For an example, LinkedIn members might search and review the discussion started on Saturday by Nicole Jelly, a global HR strategist and cross-cultural expert in Calgary, Alberta.  Mr. Kenney is the Member of Parliament for Calgary Southeast.

Growing numbers think LinkedIn is a good bet

If you haven't registered on the professional social network LinkedIn yet, now might be a good time to do it.  https://www.linkedin.com/reg/join  Business news reports released yesterday and today say third-quarter profits reported by LinkedIn Corp. are twice as high as analysts had estimated, thanks to growing levels of interest from participants, advertisers, and employers.  Besides increasing its advertising rates and nearly doubling sales from its hiring services, LinkedIn has also become a favourite with investors, according to an early-morning blog post today by ABC News blogger Richard Davies. 

Davies notes LinkedIn’s track record has been an exception among Internet companies that have gone public in recent years, some of which are trading well below their initial public-offering prices (IPO).  By contrast, LinkedIn’s stock price has more than doubled since its May-2011 IPO.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/11/forget-facebook-linkedin-is-new-favorite/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-linkedin-earnings-idUSBRE8A01JS20121102

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-01/linkedin-sales-exceed-estimates-as-subscriptions-jump
http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2012/11/02/linkedin-stock-facebook-earnings/
http://mashable.com/2012/11/01/linkedin-has-187-million-users/

6 tips for handling whiners

Sorry it took me so long to produce this second installment to my post of 21 August/12, when I cited research that showed too much time spent listening to someone else’s complaining can damage your staff’s brain cells.  I feel bad for leaving you hanging this long, especially since practical advice exists that may help you not merely cope with a longwinded complainer but actually enable you to bring out the best in the whiner.

By whiner, I am referring specifically to someone whose complaints are neither constructive nor even useful as a therapeutic (if passive-aggressive) form of stress relief.  Although such whiners may possess a legitimate sense that things should be different and want to make things right, they have no idea how to effect improvements.  So as a result they feel helpless and, instead of taking action, they whine.

If faced with this type of whiner, the best thing you can do is diminish the whiner’s helplessness by taking the following five positive steps:

1. Listen to the whiner’s complaints (even if you don’t want to and at risk of your own brain cells).  Write down the main points to prove to the whiner that you are listening and also help you recognize the complaints again if the whiner tries to recycle them.
2. Because whiners tend to complain in vague generalizations, you'll probably need to take charge of the conversation by asking clarifying questions to make the whiner pinpoint the specifics of the problem.  If your whiner is unable to be specific, suggest that he or she go away and gather more information.
3. Give the whiner something to look forward to by setting a time for a subsequent meeting, either to discuss the problem further or (better) when s/he will get back to you with possible solutions.
4. Also to redirect the whiner’s thinking toward a solution, ask the whiner what s/he wants.
5. If the preceding steps fail to produce positive change, know when to draw the line.  If the whiner reinitiates the same cycle of complaints, clarify that talking about problems without solutions is a poor use of everyone’s time and shut him or her down.

 What not to do:

1. Agree or disagree with whiners.  Either alternative simply encourages them to keep whining.
2. Try to solve whiners’ problems for them.  You need their participation.
3. Ask why.  Whiners will construe the question as an invitation to start over from the beginning.

I have adapted the above five tips and three don'ts from the book ““Dealing with Difficult People:  24 Lessons For Bringing Out the Best In Everyone” by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner.  In personal practice, I have found all these instructions useful in helping me cut to the chase quickly when faced with another person’s morass of complaints.  But I have to admit, in my less diplomatic moments I've also had success in deflecting whiners by simply informing them that they are compromising my brain cells.  That's my sixth tip.

What techniques work best for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGAUPDENuZs