eManagement Tips - June 2019

• How a mindset of learning and continuous improvement will help to save time
• Reminders of key principles and approaches for effective recruitment
• Some very helpful insights on trust from a recent study by the Institute of Leadership and Management

How a mindset of learning and continuous improvement will help to save time

Two of the most commonly reasons that our delegates cite for why they struggle to tackle tasks that require more thought and expertise are:

1. Interruptions by colleagues
2. Too many other urgent and important things to deal with

There is no way to put this politely: many of the interruptions by colleagues are often unnecessary!

The Situation, Target, Proposal ("STP") tool is a very simple one that you could share with your direct reports to help them take more ownership for their problems:

• Situation - what is the problem that we have encountered? What facts do we have to describe it? For instance: I am struggling with using this piece of equipment because every time I come to use it, it has run out of ink. As a result I often lose a good half hour trying to locate a replacement ink cartridge. This is making me have to work into my lunch hour, or miss my bus in the evening so as to get my experiment completed on time.
• Target - what would you like to have happen? I'd like to be able to have the equipment up and running when I come to it, or a spare cartridge ready to hand to install.
• Proposal - what options have you thought about to resolve this? What do you think about these options? I've had a quick chat with the other technicians, and most of us are encountering this problem at one time or another, and are feeling frustrated by it. We've come up with a couple of options that we like. I would like to get your views on them: a) Keep a spare cartridge on the shelf above the equipment, and each of us take responsibility to alert the people in charge of lab supplies to order a new one as soon as we use the spare; b) Assign one of us the responsibility to run a test print of the equipment at the start of each day, as part of our lab maintenance activities.

They might still interrupt you, but at least they will have thought things through more carefully beforehand.  This is one way to encourage learning and development.

[N.B. You might also agree a system with your colleagues so that they know when they can interrupt you, and when only to do so if they have something that is truly urgent.]

A mind-set of continuous improvement
We can apply a mind-set of continuous improvement to all aspects of our work, whether it is based around projects, or on-going operational processes.  

Everything that we do is a complex interaction of people and things! We should therefore expect problems to happen - things will go wrong! What we can do though, is:

• Take time to anticipate the greatest risks and develop mitigation plans for them
• Make sure we deal with issues that do arise as promptly as possible and in a way that will reduce the risk of them happening again
• Actively seek out what we can learn from previous experiences to continuously improve our processes and how we go about our work
• Tackle the root causes of problems rather than just the symptoms

There are some great tools to help us with achieving a mind-set of continuous improvement. Making time to reflect and apply them will help us to reduce the amount of fire-fighting that we do. If we can reduce the time spent on urgent (but important) tasks, we can make more time for the other important but not (yet) urgent tasks.

You can find out more about these topics in our courses on Project Management,Lean and Six Sigma and Knowledge Management.

Reminders of key principles for effective recruitment

Peter Cappelli (HBR, May-June 2019) has written a really helpful overview of how newer methods of hiring have lost some of the positive qualities of more traditional methods.

A summary of his main points can be found in Revisiting the positive qualities of more traditional methods of recruitment.

Current methods of recruitment involve making greater use of recruitment or head-hunting agencies which may result for example in:

• Not developing or retaining internal staff
• Having to pay more and spend more time to attract and then develop external staff

This way, candidates will self-select to exclude themselves from the recruitment process, or to continue with it as appropriate.

Some organisations are creating online tests with visible scores, or gamification programmes.  These help candidates to better understand the nature of the work and the potential match with their interests and capabilities .

2.  Understand the limits of internal referrals

Some companies encourage their staff to make internal referrals, and may even have some form of reward for doing so.  However there is a risk that this can result in a reduction in the diversity of the workforce, as people may refer people who are like them.

Suggestions that may help internal referrals be more effective:

• Have the internal referrer help with on-boarding the new member(s) of staff
• If you pay people for making referrals, do so about 6 months after the new person is in place

Measurement of any process is good practice: it helps you to identify what is working well, and what could be improved.

Possible approaches include:

• Monitoring turn-over and attendance level of those recruited through different routes
• Looking at results from your Performance Review process
• Getting qualitative feedback from the managers of new hires on their degree of satisfaction with their recruits

There is no doubt that competency-based questions are the most effective way to find out whether the interviewee has the experience, attitude and capability to match the job.

However, it takes time and skill to formulate these questions, and to ensure that all your interviewers are using the same questions consistently across all candidates.

As Cappelli says: "Just winging it and asking whatever comes to mind is next to useless."

This is something that we could help you with through our courses on Recruitment and Interview Skills.

Some insights on trust from the Institute of Leadership and Management


Illustration from "Trust in Leaders 2018" a report from the Institute of Leadership and Management - https://www.institutelm.com/resourceLibrary/trust-2018.html