You’ve spent time identifying your interest, your skills, and your ideal environment. You understand your strengths, what you have to offer and a profile of what the organization you want to get into looks like. It’s now time to develop your plan.
Develop your targeted companies list
You should have your industries picked out by now. You’ll use that list plus items you discovered in your ideal environment study to target companies that fit your profile. Sites like zoominfo.com, ReferenceUSA, Glassdoor, and Linkedin can help you build a list based on your industry preference, company size, and geographical preferences. Your targeted list now becomes one of three avenues that you will pursue in landing your job.
Your targeted company list.
Job openings you find.
Your network.
Proactively reach out to your targeted list to get to know them and show them the value you can add. Connecting with their employees, doing informal interviews, going to their events and job fairs are a few of the ways to connect with them.
Track your progress
You want to track your application statuses and set deadlines and expectations for yourself to ensure that you stay motivated and informed.
Job Tracker: I suggest creating it online so that you can reference it across multiple devices. Google Docs is one of the easiest to use. (It’s similar to Microsoft Word) Break this document into three sections.
Jobs applied to: List out the role title, the company, pay range if known, and date applied. Also, add in other contacts you made and when.
Said no: Move any applications to the no pile once you hear back. Leaving it in the applied section just clutters up what you have out there that is still an option. Delete out your No section from time to time so that it doesn’t build up to a discouragement.
Never heard back: (60 days): If you haven’t heard anything back in 60 days, you likely aren’t going to hear anything. Moving them out of the applied section again gives clarity to real options. Clear this one out periodically as well.
Activity Goals: Set weekly goals for yourself to hit towards your ultimate goal of finding your job. It’s easy to get sidelined because you are overwhelmed, don’t know what to do or just get plain lazy. Keep yourself accountable so that you don’t fall into those traps.
Resilience and proper expectations
Finding your job can take some resilience. Know going into this that you are going to have setbacks and be prepared for them. Make peace with the inevitable and do your best to not take it personally. Just because you don’t get an interview or someone says no, doesn’t mean you have less value. It just simply means that the opportunity wasn’t your job. Look to see what you can learn from those tough moments to help you in the future.
Keep yourself focused and in the right mindset while on the hunt for your job.
You know who you are. You know the skills that set you apart. You know what that ideal job and company look like. Use all that knowledge to build yourself a solid plan to land your job. It’s out there, you just need to go and find it.
It’s important to match your skills, strengths, interest, and personality to a company’s culture, values and environment. No doubt, that the company is going to feel you out for culture fit during the interview process. How do you learn about the environment and culture of a company that you’ve never worked at before? Getting this one wrong could lead you to regret the decision to join the group in the first place. Let’s get it right.
Understand the company’s purpose and philosophy
You should research any company that you are interested in to understand its purpose and philosophy. It’s the whys and hows of its existence. Here are a few of the ways that you can check in on this.
Check out the company’s website. What are they promoting and proud of? What is their history? Do they have info on the specific location that you are looking for? You can find much of this info on the about page of their website.
Look into the CEO. Have they been there awhile? You can look at sites like Glassdoor to see their approval rating among the employees. You can also discover if the employees would recommend the company to others. I like to check to see the trend in the comments. Have they jumped up or taken a nosedive in the year? Why?
Check the organization’s social media feeds to see what they are highlighting. It’s a signal of what is important to them.
If you have an in-person interview, get there early and observe how people interact with others. Are they modeling the type of environment that you like?
Interview everyone that interviews you about their thoughts on the company. (They usually love this!) Ask them to describe the company. What is their favorite thing about working there? What is one thing that they would change? What does success look like there?
Some items that describe fit are universal
Some things are just universal and are nearly always looking for in a new job. Here are some of the most common to look into and discover how important they are to the organization you are looking at.
Trust
Employee engagement or their level of care
Promotability
Their culture: formal or informal
Leadership
Communication to its employees
Ownership of role and responsibility
Delegation or micromanagement
Identify your ideal leader
Hopefully, you have had at least one great boss. It’s ok if you’ve had a bunch of bad ones too. Use the bad ones to figure out what you don’t want in a leader! Write out all those qualities and honestly ask the hiring leader how they see themselves as a leader and what their leadership style is. If it’s a match, that’s just further confirmation that you are in the right place. If it’s not a match, it’s an indicator that you likely will be frustrated in the role.
Now, you know everything you need to about yourself, you have your industries narrowed down and your companies picked out. Next time we will formulate the plan to get your job.
For your next job, you’ll need to have a good grasp of your skills and strengths so that you can show that value to the hiring leaders for the company that you want to be with.
Uncover your skills and strengths
First, you need to note what your skills are. Think about your current and former jobs, schooling, hobbies, and other activities that could draw out what those skills are. Some categories to consider are:
People skills: coaching others, leading, listening, performance management, hosting, selling, and teaching
Data skills: research, compiling info, finance, programming, excel, reports and problem-solving
Some areas to think about to uncover your strengths.
What are you known for?
What are you the go-to person for?
What do you love doing?
What are you successful at?
Resources
There are several places that can help you identify your skills and strengths.
I recommend the book Strengthfinder 2.0. It’s not a traditional book in that you read it from cover to cover. You take an online assessment and then use the book to dive into your strengths and then increase your understanding of who you work well with and you wouldn’t work well with.
Assessment.com is a free site where you can find your strengths and skill set. Be prepared. It takes nearly 25 minutes to complete. There are paid options for this site as well.
Mindtools.com is another comprehensive site out there that identifies and maps your skills.
List out your accomplishments & build your story
Now that you’ve got your skills and strengths figured out, take some time to list out your accomplishments. These could be projects, tasks, that you are especially proud of. What are you most proud of in your job? Try to get to a list of 10 or more. They don’t all have to be monumental things. They may be simpler things you did that put a smile on your face, made you celebrate, or helped someone out.
Got your list?
Perfect! The next step is to start to create stories around those accomplishments. We’ve talked about the importance of storytelling in the past. (Be the Storyteller: PTB show #124) Reference that resource to understand the story type that you want to convey with each accomplishment.
There are many acronyms that professionals use to convey a good story structure. Regardless, each story should start with your situation, what action you or your team took and what the end results were. We’ve covered this topic in the past as well. (Ace the Interview: PTB show #113)
Put those two together and you’ve got strong accomplishments that are presented clearly and in an engaging format for hiring leaders to hear.
You should have a list of 12 or so industry careers interests from our time last week. Combine that with your knowledge about your strengths and skills and you should really be getting close to finding what your job looks like. Next week we will look at your ideal environment. What does your dream company look like?
As you get older, the stress of finding a new job increases. As a high schooler or college student, there is little risk or consequences, and you typically have many options to choose from. Life gets more complex. You start a family, you buy a house, you are (hopefully) preparing for retirement. It can be easy to fall into temptation and just jump into any job that you can land that pays what you were making before or a little more.
We want to help you find not just any job, but your job. It’s out there, we just need to figure out what your interests are, what your strengths are, what the environment looks like and develop a plan. We’ll focus on your interests today.
Know your personality
It’s important that you start with your personality and interests as you look for your job. After all, your job should be about your interests, skills, and desires and not something you have to mold yourself into liking.
If you do research on personality types, you’ll find anywhere from 4 to 16 personality types listed. They typically fall under these general categories:
Introverted/Extroverted: This should be the easiest for you to identify.
Planner/Flexible: Do you love building and following a plan, or do you enjoy meeting the surprises of life? Public service professions strive in flexibility, think of nurses, firefighters, police etc. While they do train and plan, they never know what their day is going to look like. Great planners sit in areas like finance, operations, and management.
Big picture/Small details: Are you more of a visionary leader or love being in the details of the work and creation? Loving details is great for those in auditing and technology programming. Big picture and creativity work well in the arts, marketing, and business strategy.
Solo/Team: Do you like depending on yourself or love the team environment? This will help you narrow down what type of job in the industries that you pick out.
Logics/Emotions: Do you lean towards logic? These people love numbers, analytics, data and facts in making decisions. Emotional people follow their heart. They typically have a strong sense of their morals and use that to guide them.
Consistency/Variety: Do you like to work on the same things consistency and grow a deep level of knowledge and expertise or do you enjoy mixing it up on different tasks and projects?
Driver/Contributor. Some would say this category is leader/follower. We know that you can lead yourself well without having the desire to lead others. This category is still relevant though, and one I surprising struggled with a bit as I was going through the same process. Is leading others important to you? How much? Does it have to be direct leadership or can you have an impact through indirect influence? I found that I love leading people directly, but I didn’t require a number of direct reports as long as I am influencing the whole organization.
Two of the largest and most known personality profiles are Myer Briggs and DiSC. A number of companies and organizations use these two companies to better understand their people. You can find those and various free outlets online. I would suggest utilizing one. You will likely found yourself as a bit of both options in the categories above and a test can help clarify that for you.
Uncover your interests
Now that you’ve got your personality nailed down, you need to identify your interests. This means figuring out what industries you want to work in. O*NET is a site by the US Department of Labor that can help you narrow down the industries to find the best fit for you.
Step one: Find your industry
Eliminate the industries that you are totally out for you.
Pick ones that really interest you.
Identify ones that have some interest.
Step two: Find your job areas
Click on each industry that you picked and choose your top 25 areas. This will take some time to complete.
Once you drill into the industry, you can see jobs, projected growth and what the estimated job count increase will be in the coming years.
Narrow your list of 25 down to 12.
Uncovering your interests and identifying your personality are two very practical points towards finding your job. You now know what type of job role that you want based on your personality and where you want to work based on your interests. We’ll cover skills, the company profile, and your plan in the coming weeks.
One of the biggest “a-has” moments in leadership is understanding the idea of “altitude.” As a leader, you deal with many different groups: your team, your leader(s), peers, board members, customers, and more. (See more at our 360 Leader Series – Shows 432-434) Each of these relationships and touchpoints requires a different approach. Like a pilot, leaders have to adjust to their altitude and adapt their engagement styles to fit the audience in order to maximize their effectiveness and success as a leader.
Being able to adapt one’s approach based on who you’re talking to is key to being a great leader. While that seems like an easy statement to say and live out, I’ve seen it impact a person’s effectiveness in a bad way at all levels of leadership. Today, we’ll look at tips to ensure you are flying at the right altitude with the people you are interacting with.
Discussions, directives, and decisions
For a new people leader or even a new leader leading in a different role, part of the adjustment is learning how to best engage with your team. You must clearly distinguish between discussions, directives, and decisions. It’s important for the leader to set a clear tone for those around them:
Discussions operate at lower altitudes, seeking opinions, input, and consensus. These conversations can be very collaborative in nature.
Examples: During a brainstorming session, you are working through the programming for a highly visible event at the organization. Everyone shares their thoughts, and you might collectively decide on what the final agenda looks like. In another example, the team may come together to discuss how to improve customer relations & experience. People are contributing their ideas, and ultimately, you, as the leader, will choose which of those ideas the team implements.
Directives require leading at a higher altitude, where you exercise decision-making authority and align your team toward specific goals.
Example: After gathering input from your team, you decide to implement a new customer outreach and referral program. As the leader, you’re assigning the tasks, providing clear instructions, and setting deadlines and milestones on how to roll out each phase. In another example, you are directing your team on all the checklists and procedures in order to close down your operations for the evening.
Decisions are where the responsibilities fall. At every organization, people make decisions of varying magnitudes. In those critical moments, the leader is the one who decides.
Example: After reviewing all the data and team recommendations, you decide to pivot the team’s strategy and activities. You have the team start doing new things and quit doing other things. You are the decision maker as the leader, and you’ll need to take full responsibility for its success or failure. A leader shouldn’t delegate decision-making for the big things; that’s a core aspect of leadership.
The altitude adjustment comes down to making it clear to the team whether it is a decision, a directive, or a discussion. Operating at different altitudes means effectively managing these areas well, and requires careful attention to your leadership altitude to maintain effective management and team engagement.
Communicating at different altitudes
Communicating effectively means adjusting how you talk based on who you’re talking to. When you’re presenting to your leader or a high-stakes group like an executive team, you need to be more strategic and provide the right amount of detail.
Years ago, I did a show with Aman Agarwal (Show 254). He’s a very sharp leader, and we discussed the topic of technical leaders, those who are experts in their field, struggling with communicating effectively with higher-level leaders. Leaders can often miss the mark when communicating with different groups. Discussions, directives, and decisions may come more naturally, but being mindful of what we are presenting, in what way, and with what level of candor is something harder to balance. As you are preparing for your presentation, ask yourself:
Is the material covering information at the right level? Is it too in the weeds, or is there not enough detail?
Is my audience well-versed in the topic, or do I need to relate things in a way that translates better for others to follow?
Does my tenor, physical appearance, match the tone of the presentation and the people in the room?
When you are with a high-level leader, you may tailor the message for that specific person. For an external message, your message may be broader in detail, while communicating in a professional but easy-to-understand way. When it comes down to it, you need to change how you communicate to be most effective with different audiences.
“Flying” at different altitudes
Some leaders excel while working at one altitude but struggle with other heights. For example, a leader might be a rock star leading their team, but struggle with leading up to their network of leaders and stakeholders. A single-altitude approach can doom one-dimensional leaders to not reaching their potential, impacting the business in a negative way, and ultimately may cost them their jobs.
How to master altitude adjustments
Self-Assessment: Self-awareness is key. Identify your natural altitude preference (60,000 feet, 30,000 feet, or 10,000 feet). This will help you recognize your strengths and weaknesses at different altitudes. Take the self-reflection further by understanding what your challenges and preferences are at each level. Perhaps one level intimidates you, while you feel very comfortable at another level.
Audience Understanding: Know your audience. When you understand the needs and preferences of different audiences, you can adapt your communication style and content accordingly. Seek to learn what those specific preferences are for key people that you communicate with are in order to better deliver your message.
Strategic Delegation: Know your limitations. Once you know and acknowledge your limitations in certain altitudes, you can identify team members who excel at different altitudes as an offset and delegate those responsibilities to leverage others’ strengths. You can’t be everywhere at once, so leverage the unique skills of your team to help carry the load.
No leader is perfect at every level, but it’s important that you have everything covered in your role. Reflect on your layers this week to see where you can focus some attention, where your team can step in to help fill a need, and how you need to adapt your leadership and communication along the way. Doing so will make you a great leader who can fly at all altitudes.
The world keeps changing, and a clear indicator of that is the use of AI. What started out as an out-there Sci-fi concept has turned into a tool that your parents and maybe even grandparents know about and are using today. AI has had a monumental impact on the interview process. It can almost feel like a cat-and-mouse game, each side trying to outmaneuver the other. For those not in the game, it can make an intimidating process feel even more so. Today, we’ll help you think through AI and how you can leverage this tool successfully as you look to land your next role.
AI can help you prep for the interview
The bot that can kick out an anime version of yourself or tell a joke can actually be leveraged in a much more productive way when it comes to preparing for your next role. It’s a great sidekick that can polish (or even create) a resume and can be a sounding board for you as you prepare for a big interview.
What to do:
Research the company and plug that information into AI to build a frame of reference for your preparation
Consider leveraging AI to scan your resume and make suggestions on what to improve or what to tailor for the role that you are interested in.
Search to see if you can find what kind of interview questions the company asks. Use those questions with AI to help with interview prep. You can even practice your answers with it! Remember that AI isn’t totally unbiased, so take its feedback with that understanding.
For those who feel like they aren’t getting the responses and answers that they are looking for, consider researching or taking a class on AI prompts. How you enter your questions and commands makes all the difference in the effectiveness of the tool. For example, a prompt of “Ask me an interview question about customer service” may get you something being more specific will help you even more. “Give me an interview question about dealing with a customer service issue at ________ company. Pretend you are the hiring leader and ask the question like you are interested in how I react under pressure to meet a customer’s needs.”
When I used those two prompts, I received a generic customer service question. When I used the second prompt and with the company as Starbucks, it gave me a tailored question and included a scenario of a busy day where I had to take care of the customer while keeping the line moving.
Understand the organization’s rules on AI
It’s easy to say that the problem with the hiring experience falls on the company. Like many simple statements, this one is more complex than it seems. Most good companies don’t want to have a complex and challenging interview process. They prefer a simple, authentic, and enjoyable process for both parties. Companies are also combating their own candidate challenges: People interviewing on behalf of someone else, candidates abusing AI in the interview process to prop up their lack of experience, and even pretending to be someone entirely to get a job. Those issues and others have caused companies to react, and the result is an even less candidate-friendly process than before.
What to do:
Check the site for its AI policy around interviews. Companies are beginning to post their stance on the use of AI during the interview process, and some are even sharing what their own use of AI is in the process as well.
Many companies are adjusting their interview process, going back to in-person and on-camera interviews. If that’s the case, remember to check their dress code policy with the recruiter so you can match the culture of the organization.
In virtual interviews, be very mindful of how you are presenting yourself during the conversation. You don’t want to come off like you are using AI tools if the company forbids them for use.
Have a perspective on AI to share
While the topic of AI in the workplace is still evolving, it’s becoming a more common topic in the interview process. The interviewer may be interested in your thoughts, experience, or curiosity on the subject. It’s best to be prepared just in case.
What to do:
They may ask you if you used AI while applying. Be honest and share how you leveraged the tool.
Be ready to discuss the benefits and limitations of AI in the role that you are applying for and in general use that may apply to the company.
Take time to understand how AI models work. (It’s not as complicated as it may seem)
Show enthusiasm and curiosity about the subject. We are all learning it in real time together.
Avoid overstating your expertise and knowledge about AI.
AI has proven that it’s not just a tech fad that will soon fade away. Use it to help you along your journey, and be prepared to share about the topic with others so that they know you are a curious and forward-thinking candidate.
Your trustworthiness is one of the few commodities that you have nearly full control over in terms of value. Establishing trust and continuing to make deposits into that relationship bank with someone else has lots of benefits – less stress, increased willingness from others to help, and an overall better working environment among many other things.
I think many of us strive to be leaders that are seen as trustworthy. We want our team to know and feel like they are cared and advocated for. We want our leaders to trust and empower us to do the job well. We desire our personal relationships to add value to who we are. Today, we are going to look at ways to help you stay true to your word as a trustworthy leader that others can count and depend on.
Determine your non-negotiables
Staying true to your word starts with understanding what those absolutes are in your life and how you show up to others. In a world full of gray, here are some areas to consider as you determine your personal non-negotiables.
Integrity / Truthfulness
Professionalism
Productivity
Responsibility
Cooperation with others
Reliability
Discipline
Commitment
The “how” of your work
Taking a stand for your non-negotiables means more than just living those values and standards when it’s convenient and easy. It comes down to embodying them consistently, even in the storms of life or the alluring temptation at times to make a compromise.
The tension could show itself in most mundane things in your day. Let’s say truthfulness is one of your non-negotiables. During work, you round up all the data for a presentation to help prop up your perspective or you leave some data out that isn’t as flattering to what you are trying to get across to the person you are presenting to. It may seem like a silly thing to highlight, but compromising on your non-negotiables can lead to a slippery slope that leads you to a place where you would never see yourself.
Tips to not negotiate your non-negotiables
I doubt that many people out in the world wake up one day and just decide to throw away their moral and ethical compass. It usually happens in baby steps and you find yourself in a situation that you never imagined yourself in.
I learned this lesson in a leadership course in the military. We were dropped off in the swamp with nothing but a compass and a heading. The course was so long and winding that even walking off by one degree would mean that you had a good chance of missing your final destination. Three degrees? Guaranteed that you weren’t going to end up where you wanted to be. To stay on course, you needed to stop, check your surroundings, and verify that you were still on the right course. The same applies in life with your moral compass. You need to check in with yourself from time to time to make sure that you are on the correct heading. Failing to do those self-assessments may lead you to drift off of your desired path. Some reminders on how to avoid negotiating on your non-negotiables:
Be transparent: Regularly communicate your core values and what everyday behaviors that embody them or violate them. It’s like your company’s values. If you keep repeating them and including them in other conversations, you are communicating what’s important for you and for others to follow.
Set boundaries: Clearly define which behaviors are acceptable and which are not within your team — especially the little things. Remember that minor things still matter (Show 461) When things go off the rails for other people who interact with your team, do a debrief with the person on your team who was involved in the interaction. Did they see the impact that the other person had when they strayed from their values? When a poor choice happens on your team, be sure to catch and coach it early so it doesn’t grow into a bigger problem.
Lead by example: Demonstrate your non-negotiables in action, showing that you don’t compromise on your beliefs. It’s rare that a person will rise above the level and expectation of their leader. It can happen, but do you want an environment where your team feels like they have to rise above your level of integrity?
Demand accountability: Establish an environment where everyone feels responsible and is rewarded for upholding declared standards. Call out the wins both publically and privately to celebrate a person who stands up for their non-negotiables and further, the impact by showing the challenge that they faced, how they handled it, and what the outcome was as a result.
The power of your commitment shines a light to others
Your non-negotiables do require a commitment. Sticking to that short list of things that make you a trustworthy leader strengthens your leadership in your circle of influence and creates a culture of mutual trust and respect. When you take a stand in these areas that are important to you, you are not only leading yourself well, you are also shaping and influencing how others should do their work as well.
Lean into the clarity that your non-negotiables offer and watch how they elevate your leadership and the cohesiveness of the larger team. Staying true to your word brings a deeper level of satisfaction to your success and will resonate with your personal values.
Your non-negotiables are the bedrock of your leadership and how you show up as a person. When you live and stand firm in your integrity you inspire others to do the same.
Getting alignment with others can be something that you either look forward to or dread depending our your personality and the personality of the person that you need to interact with. Honestly, depending on the day and tasks ahead you can fall into both categories in a matter of hours. I know that I sometimes feel the same excitement and dread at the same time as well on occasion.
No matter whether you love to work with a person or a group or you just don’t get along with someone else, it’s essential to arrive at some shared alignment in order to be effective in meeting your goals and the shared goals of the team.
Understand your audience
One of the first steps to gaining alignment on a project, task, or strategy is to understand your audience. Solidifying your understanding of your audience will smooth out the process if done well and will throw in all kinds of roadblocks and frustration if not accounted for properly. Here are some tips to better connect with them as you gain alignment with others:
What is their communication preference? Get a good understanding of how the person performs to receive their communication and how they best process information. In one of my regular team meetings, I have a great associate that needs to see a visual to understand the details of where we are going. Others prefer to talk it out together.
Who really needs to be there? Sometimes a leader will say that they want to be involved only to later learn that someone else on their team is the right person. Other times the opposite is true. They delegate the meeting out, only to ask you for updates and add last-minute additions and preferences. Let the leader know your observations and ask for further clarification if you see a misalignment in this area. It’s not your job to fix the dynamics of another team, but you should work with them to get the right person in the proverbial seat to help get the alignment that you need.
What level of involvement do they want? This is where you may have some tension, especially if you are one to be agile and quick to act while another party wants to have oversight or be heavily involved in the decision-making process. Be willing to compromise here to the best of your ability and ask your leader for guidance if you are struggling in this area. Honor the person’s role and avoid turning the tension into something personal. At the end of the day, you likely want what’s best for the team and organization.
Be aware of your own work preferences and tendencies
We all have personal twerks about us and many of those will help or hurt you as you try to gain alignment with others. For me, when leading meetings, I have a tendency not to say much. I want to hear from others and I want them to feel like they are heard and have a voice on the item that we are all aligning on. This certainly helps us get to an agreed-upon solution faster.
I also have a tendency to pour in my focus and effort to knock out a project very quickly by myself. As a result of that speed and efficiency, I will sometimes neglect to include others or just give them a high-level status of what I am working on. Sometimes it’s not a problem, and other times I have to go back and spend time getting a party up to speed or even make changes based on feedback.
Having a good understanding of your preferences in work style and how you function and communicate to others will help you see how you need to adapt your style or capitalize on your strength.
Make the success about others and not yourself
It’s a great feeling to know that you accomplished something that will greatly impact others in a good way. Remember that alignment has everything to do with others and nothing to do with yourself. As a young leader, I would see these accomplishments as personal wins, I got what I wanted. As I matured, I saw the joy of shared success and seeing others celebrate the win just as much, if not more than me.
Take the personal drive for a win out of the equation and be sure to recognize and celebrate the shared success as you gain alignment with others.
The bigger the team and company, the bigger the need
If you are an entrepreneur leading a small team, or maybe you are a team of one…. there’s not much alignment needed, right? Look at yourself in the mirror, make your decision and move towards the goal! As the team grows, and the physical footprint of the company grows, so does the need for alignment.
For example, the need for alignment is critical to have any kind of success at a $100 Billion company. The complexity to gain that alignment can be very challenging. You may find yourself in an organization so big that you don’t even know who the stakeholders are perhaps until it’s too late. In large organizations, take the time to understand the playing field and who the players and key stakeholders are. The strength of your networking will pay off here as you connect with others to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. Some tips as you work to gain alignment in large organizations include:
Be willing to slow down. Get everyone up to speed and include them on the journey. the larger the organization the more people will likely need to be involved.
Compromise when possible. Your priorities may not be the same as others, and in large organizations, it’s likely someone that you need to align with will not share the same priority or perspective as you. Remember the larger goal and be willing to adapt your plan and strategy for others.
As you personally gain more authority and influence, your need to gain alignment instead of going at it alone will increase as well. Remember to include others, adapt to others’ needs, and share the success together. You’ll be an effective leader that successfully impacts more people than ever before.
Companies have a turnover problem. We see it everywhere and it’s only compounded along the record number of job openings as well. Signs at local businesses that people don’t want to work anymore (Show 292 4 phrases to remove from your vocabulary), the well-documented crisis in nursing shortages, and other examples tell the story of the importance of keeping your people around for the long term.
A Harvard Business Review study showed that people are most likely to leave in their first year. Most companies of course don’t need HBR to tell them that; they feel the churn of the rotating door of talent in some of their most critical roles. Today we’ll discuss ways to keep your people engaged so that they stick around to the first year and far beyond.
Understand why
The first step in building out a plan is to understand the reasons why the largest groups of people are leaving. I’ve spoken with and advised organizations that will inherently point to compensation as the reason why. While money and benefits may be a factor, it will never be the only factor at play in the reasons behind leaving. Invest the time on the front end to understand what some of the true reasons are.
Where to look
Learn from those that wrapped their first year recently. What kept them around? What were their struggles? What do they feel like they missed? This will be one of the most valuable places to gather this important info.
Learn from the leaders of the population that you are solving for. What do they see? What are some of the common skill gaps of new people?
Talk to peers, partners, and others to affirm or add context to what you learned from the first two groups.
Poll those that left. This is a great practice to have in place as long as it is in conjunction with some of the other fact-gathering activities. Often times ex-employees won’t give you the full reason or they may over-exaggerate a point based on a bad personal experience.
Leverage your findings to build out a plan
Regardless of industry, you’ll typically find a combination of compensation, support to be successful in the role, a sense of connectedness to others, and purpose in their work to be some of the major reasons that you may need to care for.
Now that you have the power of that knowledge to know where to go, you need to consider how to get there. Look at how your vulnerable population works. Are they office based with strict performance and time expectations? Perhaps they are mobile; always on the move. Maybe they are mostly working from home or in a hybrid work environment.
For your program to be successful it must meet the person where they are and resonate with who they are, what they need, and how and when they need it. Using the three examples above, if you created one program to try to care for them all, you would inevitably fail at all three. Leverage multiple layers into the program to help meet people’s different learning styles and communication preferences. I prefer to include virtual meetings, mentoring, one-on-one coaching, and self-paced learning (using audio, video, and practical exercises)
Assess data and storytell
Access your program at the 90-day, 6-month, and year mark to see what adjustments need to be made. I don’t think that there is a single program that I have launched over the years that didn’t change in some regard by the end of the first year. Let go of control and ego to listen and learn from your mentors, advisors, and people that are going through the program. Make those needed adjustments to further refine the experience of your people and increase the engagement of those mentors, and advisors that are making it happen.
The six-month and year marks are great times to pull retention data to see how your efforts are actually impacting the business. Partner with HR to get an understanding of what the full costs are when hiring for an open role (Comp, backfill expenses, recruiting expenses, loss of productivity, etc). Multiply that dollar amount by the number or percentage of people that were saved as a result of your program. This is a great way to show the bottom line impact of the hard work and clears an easier path to gain more resources to expand or enhance your program.
Your onboarding program doesn’t have to be an overly complicated plan in order to get great results. Focus on understanding the why behind the reasons for leaving, build a solution that meets the person where they are, and follow up on potential changes. Be sure to celebrate those well-deserved wins along the way!
Have you ever known someone who leaves a great opportunity only to flounder and as a result never bounces back to a level that they were before? Perhaps they are the type to jump headfirst into the newest financial fad without thinking through the implications. Maybe they are constantly job hopping instead of taking time to plan out a true career journey.
There are times when we all could have benefitted from a person helping us see the larger picture before making a foolish or rash decision. Here are some ways that you can help protect your people from themselves when they need it most.
Keep a close connection when they are struggling
Sometimes it is quite easy to see when someone is struggling in their work or personal life. They act out, they may lower their level of care for themselves and others, or they may begin cutting themselves off from critical relationships among other signs. For others, the signs are much more subtle. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “I didn’t know that they were struggling or had an issue,” until it was too late.
Find the right balance: Are you figuratively smothering the person or do you need to be even more present with them? It’s hard to tell at times, and the level of connection needed can change depending on what the root cause of the other person’s struggle is. Adding to the complexity is the fact that we all need different amounts of quiet and space to process. Some great activities that always help include – taking care of some of their daily tasks, helping them get a change of scenery, and providing them with extra support. Make sure that the person is open to the help first.
Listen or problem-solve?: Being there for someone will typically fall into one of two categories: helping them problem-solve through the situation or simply being present and available for the person. A great strategy here, for both home and work, is to just ask the question, “Do you want me to help problem-solve, or do you need a good listener right now?” This gives the person an opportunity to share what their need is and a clear direction for you during the conversation.
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A person may believe that they are making good decisions or acting in a way that props themselves up for success, or at a minimum, helps them move away from a situation that is not good for them. In reality, they may be unknowingly setting themselves up for failure.
Ever make a poor choice because you later learned that you were missing critical information? People have created irreversible harm to their relationships and careers because they were acting on skewed or incomplete information.
Help your people see and understand the bigger picture. Speaking in anecdotes and what-ifs only can cause more confusion which leads to further disengagement down the path of a decision that can have unintended consequences on their career.
There may be circumstances when you can’t share fully for a number of reasons. In this circumstance, let them know that you aren’t able to share any information at the current time, but give them a timeline of when you’ll follow up with them. Mark the time commitment in your calendar so that you don’t forget to re-engage on the topic.
Give them a chance to share their struggles
Providing the person the psychologically safe space to openly share their struggles is important. There is a high likelihood that the person firmly believes that some of their needs are not being met by the team or organization. Give them a chance to express their frustration and share what their needs or aspirations are. What you learn here may give you an easy path to set things right.
Give them a way back
Let’s say the person is a wonderful contribution to your team, but they end up moving on. Let them know that they will have a place on your team if they ever change their mind. Over the years, I’ve spoken to several people who left an organization, only to return. Their loyalty and appreciation are nearly always higher as a result. Be sure to help them work through any embarrassment that they may feel as they re-onboard with the team.
We should always want the best for those on our teams, and that sometimes means letting them move on to bigger and better things. In those times when a person may be making a hasty decision, move in to provide extra support to help prevent them from making a move that they will later regret.
