Wendy Weber on Executive Recruiting

The answer is “yes”.

We tend to focus on employee retention as a universal goal.  After all, when you hire good people, you want them to stay with your organization for a good long time.

But lately, I have chatted with C-level executives from two different organizations that have intimated that they wouldn’t mind…would actually welcome…some defections.

The first time this came up, I was surprised.  I was commending the General Manager of an advertising agency on the lengthy tenures of most of his staff.  I complimented him on what must be a very attractive corporate culture, and welcoming environment.   And then I noticed that he didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as I was about the lack of turnover…

I cautiously asked whether there might be an employee or two that he wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to.  And he replied that yes, the longevity of so much of their staff was actually a liability…for a number of reasons.  He outlined them as follows:

1.  Salary creep-up.  Think about it.  You hire an Account Executive at $50,000.  With a 3% annual raise, 10 years later they are making $65,000.  Yes, there is inflation, but even in today’s dollars you could still hire an Account Executive for $50,000.  You could argue that you are paying for the 10 years of experience acquired on the job.  But maybe you simply don’t need an Account Executive with 10 years of experience.  Especially when your Account Supervisors and Account Directors have already been with you for 10 years.

2. Lack of “pollination”.  By this he meant that it is actually a good thing when employees moved on in their career.  It got the agency’s name out there, and if the ex-employees landed in an environment where agency services were needed, they would reach out to the agency they knew best; their former employer.  So employees moving on can actually be good for business.

3. Fresh air.  I had an old boss that said that if both of us always embraced the same opinion, then one of us was unnecessary!  In an environment where everybody has been there “forever”, there is a tendency towards groupthink.

New employees bring new ideas, experience and connections to an organization.

So although no organization wants to have a “revolving door” in which employees are leaving in droves, the conversation got me thinking…

And my ears perked up when I heard similar sentiments from a COO of another organization soon after. In fact, I’m wondering whether this is a more common sentiment than I realized, and now that my ears are open, I will be hearing it more often than I would have imagined.

What is the solution?

Well, there is way to “make employees leave” without firing them. I learned about it in grad school, and saw it in action earlier in my career, while working in magazine publishing. Essentially, a Manager makes life less comfortable for their employee. Nothing as blatant as harassment, but essentially take the joy out of the job…no more recognition in company meetings, no more discretionary travel, company perqs…the employee still has a job, but the message is clear: you can stay here as long as you like, but you might be happier moving on. I was uncomfortable witnessing this, although it did leave my colleague the option to leave “of his own volition”.

It’s tough when your company is a great place to work!

Houston is the nation’s No. 1 city when it comes to “mobile shopping savvy,” according to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas/Ft. Worth were the other top m-commerce cities among the nation’s 15 largest DMAs….

To read the piece reporting this, by Mark Walsh for MediaPost News, click here.

Attracting a potential customer is hard enough. Grabbing their interest and retaining them is even more difficult. It’s important to design your site so that user frustration is kept to a minimum, thereby maximizing customer retention. Below are some examples of what not to do when designing your website. Information sourced from: econsultancy.com, bx.businessweek.com, usability.gov and forrester.com by Kiss Metrics.

This is a nice overview of the fundamentals: click here.

According to Australian recruiter Luke Collard:

To work in recruitment you have to be a Mad Man

Most CEOs realise the importance of securing the best people in their industry. Having the top talent working for you gives you a huge advantage over your competition. Whilst most companies will  have developed a compelling message that they are ‘the’ place to work,  the reality is that majority don’t do much with it. It is often left sitting in the “Why work for us’ section of their website hoping that someone will stumble across it and contact them. Some are a bit more pro-active and will use things like social media to spread the word. Whilst some efforts can be effective, for most it is more of a hit and hope approach and this is typically true of smaller companies. Whether it is due to budgetary constrains, a lack of in house expertise or just a flippant approach, few effectively  get their message out to their target audience.

By Ilya Pozin for Inc. Magazine, November 28 2011:

The ability to motivate employees is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can possess. Two years ago, I realized I didn’t have this skill. So I hired a CEO who did.

Josh had 12 years in the corporate world, which included running a major department at Comcast. I knew he was seasoned, but I was still skeptical at first. We were going through some tough growing pains, and I thought that a lack of cash would make it extremely difficult to improve the company morale.

I was wrong.

With his help and the help of the great team leaders he put in place, Josh not only rebuilt the culture, but also created a passionate, hard-working team that is as committed to growing and improving the company as I am.

Here are nine things I learned from him:

1. Be generous with praise. Everyone wants it and it’s one of the easiest things to give. Plus, praise from the CEO goes a lot farther than you might think. Praise every improvement that you see your team members make. Once you’re comfortable delivering praise one-on-one to an employee, try praising them in front of others.
2. Get rid of the managers. Projects without project managers? That doesn’t seem right! Try it. Removing the project lead or supervisor and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather then everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. Think about it. What’s worse than letting your supervisor down? Letting your team down! Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster. People will come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving problems.
3. Make your ideas theirs. People hate being told what to do. Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea. “I’d like you to do it this way” turns into “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?”
4. Never criticize or correct. No one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that they did something wrong. If you’re looking for a de-motivator, this is it. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them. Ask, “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” Then you’re having a conversation and talking through solutions, not pointing a finger.
5. Make everyone a leader. Highlight your top performers’ strengths and let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader.
6. Take an employee to lunch once a week. Surprise them. Don’t make an announcement that you’re establishing a new policy. Literally walk up to one of your employees, and invite them to lunch with you. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work.
7. Give recognition and small rewards. These two things come in many forms: Give a shout out to someone in a company meeting for what she has accomplished. Run contests or internal games and keep track of the results on a whiteboard that everyone can see. Tangible awards that don’t break the bank can work too. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques.
8. Throw company parties. Doing things as a group can go a long way. Have a company picnic. Organize birthday parties. Hold a happy hour. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together.
9. Share the rewards—and the pain. When your company does well, celebrate. This is the best time to let everyone know that you’re thankful for their hard work. Go out of your way to show how far you will go when people help your company succeed. If there are disappointments, share those too. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent.

I remember a campaign defending direct mail a while back from Boardroom Reports. They distributed a poster that said, “Only Junk People call it Junk Mail.” I was a proud direct mail marketer at the time…working for magazines that mailed millions of pieces of mail each year. Now I make my living recruiting direct marketers, though most no longer call themselves direct mail marketers.

I still see the value of direct mail. But I feel like a part of a dying breed.

Yesterday’s New York Times ran a piece that said this:

“The fact is that the primary beneficiary of the United States Postal Service today is arguably the advertisers whose leaflets and catalogs flood our mailboxes. First-class mail — items like bills and letters that require a 44-cent stamp — fell 6.6 percent in 2010 alone, continuing a five-year-long plunge. Last year was the first time that fewer than 50 percent of bills in the United States were paid by mail. There were 9.3 billion pounds of “standard mail” — the low-cost postage category available to mass advertisers — but only 3.7 billion of first-class mail.”

“One could argue that the real customer of the Postal Service is now the direct mailer; it is a channel for advertising,” said Chuck Teller, founder of Catalog Choice, an online service in Berkeley, Calif., that helps people get their names off catalog mailing lists; this requires submitting the customer numbers on unwanted catalogs that arrive in the mailbox, one by one. And the problem is not just annoyance. Direct-mail advertising generates an estimated 10 billion pounds of waste each year, costing cities an estimated $1 billion to dispose of it, according to Catalog Choice.

Ouch.

Although most of our clients have embraced multichannel marketing, direct mail and catalogs still drive substantial revenue in many cases. But I’m afraid it appears that the writing for change is on the wall. Public perception of the value of mail has changed, and we need to change, too. I’ll leave it to the mailers to figure out how to stay relevant in today’s environment.

By the way, if postal service is going to drop to 5 days per week, why eliminate Saturday and have 2 consecutive days with no mail delivery? Why not drop Tuesday?