An Executive Roundtable led by Robert Corlett, Founder of Staffing Advisors focused on recruiting, retention and reward best practices was held this morning at the Tyson’s Corner Westin. Some of the comments and insights are:
Corlett offered the following key points in conducting “Results Based Hiring,” On what workers want, he pointed to a study in the “The Enthusiastic Employee” that stated the Employees priorities are:

1) Equity: to be treated fairly;

2) Camaraderie: to have warm, interesting and cooperative relationships with others in the workplace;

3) Achievement: to take pride in accomplishments, doing things well and receiving recognition for individual, team and organization accomplishments.

Corlett went on to talk about the 4 Factors that predict Employee Turnover:

1) Will I play an important role in the organization on year from now?

2) Does my manager recognize my accomplishments and can I have candid discussions with them regarding my performance?

3) Will I be worth more to the outside world than I am today?

4) Am I confident in my organization’s leadership ability to handle the significant challenges to the business?

The group discussion focused a lot on the development of effective job descriptions. Corlett stated that the words and phrases like “multi-tasked, high-energy, fast-growth and dynamic “are vastly overused and do a poor job of connecting with prospective employees. Instead he recommends that your advertising relate to the value system of the employee to best fit the role. To do this, write an ad that helps visualize the situation and need to be fulfilled.

Cindy Caldwell of Viget Labs expressed how Viget Labs developed an advertisement for an office manager that included a true statement of the type of commitment required (occasional long hours) but also the type of visceral reward available, in this case it was applause for the effort at managing a large event. She said they received a large quantity of personalized responses and filled the position quickly.

Ralph Crozier of Grow Fast Grow Right asked if it were important that the ad be true to the culture of the organization and not an interesting but misleading story line. Corlett responded that indeed this is a vital distinction. The process/description must be true to the organization and the type of employee sought.
Becky Herring of Helios HR and George Korte of Total Resource Management asked how to retain the best people? Corlett told the group that an employee’s first six months are vital, it is when a new employee is most enthusiastic about the company and role. Retention comes from paying heed to the four factors influencing turnover and fulfilling the promises made to the employee.

On attracting good candidates, Corlett gave the following insights:

1) Define the 3 most attractive, compelling attributes about the opportunity (no empty claims allowed)

2) Organize the interviewing process that will impress a top performer

3) Define the competencies that are absolutely essential to the role, avoid vague definitions like ‘team player” that can be misinterpreted. Corlett advised being candid is best, prospective employees can detect spin and corporate speak and see it for what it is.

A Web 2.0 Roundtable was held this morning at the Tower Club. Some of the comments and insights are:

ROI vs- ROE: This group consisted of mostly large companies in need of products with ROI, Janet Hall of TMNG Global suggested that every company will not only weigh the Return on Investment but will carefully assess the customer’s Return on Experience (“ROE”) as factors for continuing projects.

Sameer Sharma of Lockheed Martin indicated that Web 2.0 is in the very early stage of mass collaboration which to the agreement of the group, will enable a much higher degree of connection and leverage. Tom Hall of EDS and Janet Hall of TMNG suggested that much of the Web 2.0 early adoption is framed and tested initially for internal use only.

Burton Kloster of Brainware indicated that another area gaining Web 2.0 traction is in the Political field. Andy Hoskinson, of Unisys referenced, Barack Obama’s Linked in questionnaire issuance and the level of intelligent responses that were received as an early bell weather of change in this field. Joe Trippi the 2004 Howard Dean campaign manager and now the web coordinator for the John Edwards campaign will take this discussion deeper at the November 1 conference.

A number of attendees including; Derek Plansky of Lexis Nexis, Scott Stephens of The Push Group, Brian Williams of Viget Labs and Swamy Narayama of CGI commented to the trend of application development extending to the “seed and grow” phase and that community managers and community librarians are valuable enablers to the process, as long as they remain “honest brokers” of information and are not perceived as superficial marketing vehicles.

Daniel Chenok of SRA and Dr. Angela Wilson of Sekon remarked about the continuing need for access control, privacy and security in governmental installations. They also mentioned the self-regulation occurs in government secure intranets like Intellipedia; where posting information has a direct impact to reputation. Ralph Crozier of Grow Fast Grow Right, was excited to hear that Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft is speaking to an Executive Biz gathering on September 21st at the Reston Hyatt.