Author: Scott Hays

The tight labor market has everyone scrambling to find employees with the right sets of skills. As a result, human resources professionals are turning to contract recruiters to get people in the door quickly and painlessly.

As a strategic business tool, contract recruiting can help a company focus on survival in the 21st century. To that end, HR managers need to understand how pivotal their own role is in selecting a contract recruiter who can oversee the process and, more importantly, successfully accomplish the company’s objectives. “There’s a war for talent out there, and anything you can do to stay ahead of your competitors is healthy, even if it’s only a short-term solution,” says Dr. John Sullivan, professor of human resources at the College of Business at San Francisco State University.

Mazda moves quickly.
Last year, Irvine, California-based Mazda North American Operations restructured its HR department by taking recruiting out of the hands of managers. “It was just taking up too much time,” says Allen J. Monicatti, Mazda’s manager of workforce strategies. So he interviewed outside recruiting agencies. “We wanted someone who could handle multiple priorities, work within a fast-paced environment, and who was customer driven. We feel we selected the one person who best fit our needs.”

That person turned out to be Marj Dischler, the company’s now senior recruiting consultant. Dischler not only finds employees with the right sets of skills, but she makes job offers, assists in interviews and sets up appointments for managers. And she’s not recruiting for any other company, which means all the candidate information gets downloaded into Mazda’s own logging system.

Though it’s still too early to determine Mazda’s cost savings, “our customers seem happy with the response time of the new recruiting consultant,” says Monicatti. “The most difficult part for our HR managers was letting go. In the end, though, it has given them a lot more quality time to spend with their customers, which is what we wanted.”

Choose your recruiter wisely.
In reality, an HR generalist can handle no more than 10 open positions at any one time. Any more than that, and the hiring process becomes overwhelming, which is one reason why HR managers turn to contract recruiters—so they can leverage a way to get more done with fewer resources. “Most HR individuals have other responsibilities besides recruiting,” says Barbara Kelly, an Irvine, California-based contract recruiter. “Contract recruiters help the generalists get the hiring done in a timely fashion, so they can move on to other things.”

Still, you need to be careful selecting a contract recruiter because your company’s future can rest on it. And not all recruiters are created equally. So for openers, make sure everybody’s agreed on the definition of success, says Marion McGovern, president of the San Francisco-based M2, a high-end interim management/consulting business. “Does success in your company rest on how many candidates you run through the system, or does it rest on how many hires turn out to be successful? There’s nothing more frustrating for a recruiter than to find great people and then have to sit around and wait because the company that hired you isn’t ready to move.”

As an HR professional, you also want someone who can quickly identify the best candidates for an opening, and who can put together an attractive offer. Look for a partner who’s more than just a recruiting arm—one who can help you develop an organizational-staffing plan.

Choosing the right contract recruiter for your company is an unnerving prospect, to be sure. Mazda’s Monicatti says the key lies in proper preparation, flexibility and clearly defined objectives. “Remember that you’re going to be paying the bills,” he says. “If you don’t understand something, you’re perfectly entitled to ask a consultant to explain his or her advice.”

A good relationship between you and your recruiter typically translates into a good relationship between you and your new employee. So put the effort into getting the process right from the start. Here are a few tips on how to make that happen.

• Look for recruiters who have the appropriate business experience.
  Get referrals. Check references. Test the recruiters’ knowledge of your business and industry, and their contacts in the field.
  
  
• If you’re using a third-party service, find out how the recruiters are classified in terms of employment status.
  Are they considered employees of the service who are paid on a W-2 or are they considered independent contractors who are paid on a 1099? These two scenarios have important IRS implications and require different management approaches.
  
  
• Check the recruiter’s workload.
  You don’t want to hire someone who’s too busy with other clients. It’s also important to state expectations upfront about whether or not you’re comfortable with a recruiter doing work for other clients, particularly competitors.
  
  

• Clarify upfront whether or not recruiters can spend money on outside recruiting efforts, and if so, how much.
  For instance, can they use search firms to source candidates? Can they post positions on Internet job boards? All these things cost money and can add up quickly. If you expect recruiters to source candidates solely through cold calling and networking, make sure they have the necessary skills. If the recruiters are uncomfortable with the cold-calling approach, ask what their track record of success has been in the past. How many hires did they make on the last assignment? How many of those came from their direct sourcing efforts as opposed to passive approaches like ads and referrals?
  
  
• Determine how involved contract recruiters will be in the hiring process.
  For example, will they call prospective candidates to qualify them? Will they conduct interviews? Will they make salary offers and handle the negotiations?
  
  

• Hold regular meetings to measure and review progress.
  Set time-to-fill standards and make sure the recruiter agrees to meet them.
  
  
• Keep an eye on the budget.
  Don’t hesitate to query bills which you might not understand or which may seem unreasonable.

“Outsourcing is a way to consolidate information and data that can create a more powerful recruiting vehicle,” says Margaret Watkins, founder of Atlanta, Georgia-based Select Resources, an onsite recruitment management company. “The core business of a company isn’t always recruiting. Everybody’s searching for the best and the brightest, and it requires a full-time effort. It helps to combine information inside the company with an outside resource. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time another assignment comes up. You don’t have to redo the same work. Everything boils down to time and money.”

Outsourcing can be a godsend.
Above all else, keep your eyes on escalating costs with no return. You’re buying expertise and time. Most contract recruiters charge by the hour. And almost without exception, the people who come with their own contacts are the most valuable. Of course, there are alternatives to hourly billing. Some recruiters prefer fixed-price programs, which alleviate an employer’s concerns about out-of-control costs associated with hourly rates.

Naturally, you don’t want to come to work every morning and weed through stacks of résumés, especially if you’re already punching 16-hour days. And hiring contract recruiters can be a godsend to companies who need to focus on other business. They can help you find quality candidates in a cost-effective way, as long as you know upfront what type of recruiters you need to maximize your budgets.

But it’s not the only tool, just part of the tool kit. Still, hiring an outside contract recruiter is never as easy as it sounds. It works best when you have clearly defined objectives. But no matter how you slice it, old-fashioned networking, long hours at job fairs, Internet job posting and cold calling potential candidates are still part of the job—whether it’s you or someone else doing the leg work.

Editor’s Note: On a whim, Workforce Department Editor Scott Hays signed up for a class titled “Human Resources Management,” as part of the HR/Management Certificate Program at the University of California, Irvine. Each week, he’ll visit one nugget of knowledge from the course, helping you move slowly in the direction of becoming a more strategic partner.

Never underestimate the long reach of the U.S. government when it comes to equal employment opportunity protections.

In theory, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars all public or private employers (of 15 or more people) from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The new and improved version of 1991 makes it even more important for human resources managers to adhere to both the spirit and letter of all equal employment opportunity laws.

But as a practical matter, does the 1991 Civil Rights Act apply to U.S. citizens employed in a foreign country by a U.S.-owned company? Or can you surreptitiously fire an employee because of her race, or demote an employee before of his sexual orientation?

In his book, Human Resource Management (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997), Gary Dessler makes the point that, “at least theoretically, U.S. citizens now working overseas for U.S. companies enjoy the same equal employment opportunity protection as those working within U.S. borders.”

Notice the emphasis on the word “theoretically.” Most Congressional legislation only applies to people living within U.S. borders. A federal law prohibiting smoking in restaurants, for example, would be unenforceable in a Dublin pub. But recall, too, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was created by Title VII to investigate job discrimination complaints and, if necessary, sue on behalf of the person or persons who filed the complaint. And yes, they can investigate complaints from U.S. citizens employed in a foreign country by a U.S.-owned company.

Dessler notes exceptions where civil rights protections may not be universal (for example, if Title VII guidelines violate the law of the host country).

That aside, it’s never smart to buck the U.S. government. Mike Loewe, managing director of Detroit, Michigan-based Lion Mobility Consulting Services, is a good source of info on issues related to equal employment opportunity protections and expats. Here are just a few of the highlights from our conversation:

1. Educate and train employees to conduct themselves appropriately in accordance with local laws, as well as the policies and practices of your organization.
2. Maintain a corporate policy in the host country that states clearly your company’s strict adherence to equal employment opportunity protections.
3. Conduct site-specific cultural training and orientation programs before an employee leaves for his or her international assignment.
4. Implement a mentor program in the host country to better acclimate an employee to the day-to-day office functions.
5. Assign someone in your home office to serve as a counselor, of sorts, for expats with issues concerning equal employment opportunity protections.

Source: Human Resource Management (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997) by Gary Dessler.

Editor’s Note: On a whim, Workforce Department Editor Scott Hays signed up for a class titled “Human Resources Management,” as part of the HR/Management Certificate Program at the University of California, Irvine. Each week, he’ll visit one nugget of knowledge from the course, helping you move slowly in the direction of becoming a more strategic partner.

Ever hire what you thought was the perfect person for a job, only to realize later that he or she lacked the necessary job skills?

These days, people spend more hours developing the skills they need to excel at interviews than they do honing their job skills. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but still … consider the title of one book on the market, The Interview Rehearsal Book: 7 Steps to Job-Winning Interviews Using Acting Skills You Never Knew You Had. Here, the directors of a consulting firm help viewers learn such “trade secrets” as how to research the role you’re playing, how to look the part, and how to use simple exercises to effective physical communication.

Well, Gary Dessler in his book, “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1997), makes the point that interviewers can be influenced by these nonverbal behaviors. Dessler mentions several studies in which job candidates who demonstrated greater amount of eye contact, head moving and similar nonverbal behaviors were rated higher than candidates who demonstrated low eye contract, low energy and low voice modulation.

“An otherwise inferior candidate who is trained to ‘act right’ in an interview will often be appraised more highly than will a more competent applicant without the right nonverbal interviewing skills,” writes Dessler.

He also claims that an applicant’s attractiveness may play a role, and that according to one study, attractiveness was consistently an advantage for male applicants seeking white-collar jobs, and only for female applicants “when the job was non-managerial.”

So what can you do to avoid the pitfalls of hiring someone just because of he or she happens to be attractive or possesses exceptional nonverbal skills?

The Santa Rosa, California-based BrainwareMedia.com has produced two videos: “How To Hire the Best Person Every Time” and “Nonverbal Communication—the Silent Language.” Here are several suggestions from both videos:

1. Communication during an interview takes place on several levels: 7 percent verbal, 38 percent tone of voice and 55 percent body language. While the job applicant may say one thing, the subconscious often reveals the truth through nonverbal behavior. By observing and correctly interpreting these communication skills, even if rehearsed, you can greatly improve your hiring decisions.
2. Remember that certain gestures may be used differently by different cultures. Always probe deeper by asking more questions or rephrasing original questions to uncover the truth.
3. Take copious notes during interviews on how each candidate responded to your questions and on the questions each person asked you.
4. Develop a candidate-performance summary chart. Review the job description, review the primary technical and performance skills you’ve identified as essential for the job, and then review your notes and make your evaluation.

Source: “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1997) by Gary Dessler.

Editor’s Note: On a whim, Workforce Department Editor Scott Hays signed up for a class titled “Human Resources Management,” as part of the HR/Management Certificate Program at the University of California, Irvine. Each week, he’ll visit one nugget of knowledge from the course, helping you move slowly in the direction of becoming a more strategic partner.

It’s not paranoid to think a potential job candidate may be working undercover to ferret out unlawful discriminatory hiring practices.

In one lawsuit, for example, a female job applicant alleged that she had been propositioned during a job interview with an employment-referral agency after she reported that she had no money to pay the agency’s referral fee. “Testers” were then sent to the same interviewer, all of whom claimed that they did not have the money for the referral fee. Female testers were routinely propositioned. A Superior Court jury in Washington D.C. heard the tester evidence and returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs.

As many of you already know, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act states that all public and private employers of 15 or more persons cannot discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin with respect to employment.

Gary Dessler, in his book, “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1997), makes the point that the increasing use of employment discrimination testers has made it that much more important for hiring mangers to avoid asking questions concerning, for instance, a candidate’s marital status, child-care arrangements, ethnic background, or workers’ compensation history.

“Although they’re not really seeking employment, testers have legal standing, both with the courts and with the EEOC,” writes Dessler.

Two years ago, the EEOC announced that it had contracted with two agencies to conduct pilot testing programs. Under the contracts, the agencies each received $100,000 to train and send testers to various employers.

A judicious human resources manager will take steps in planning the interview process and conducting the actual interviews to ensure that its interviewers avoid discrimination and tester claims. Dr. James Fharf is president of Fharf & Associations, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm. Fharf is the former chief psychologist at the EEOC and author of several sections of The Civil Rights Act of 1991. He says that since the advent of various tester programs, some companies have been motivated to begin training their managers and supervisors in nondiscriminatory hiring practices. Here are his suggestions for HR managers who are worried about testers:

1. At a minimum, avoid using unstructured interviews. It’s hard to score the quality of each answer under this conversational-style approach. Also, a potential job candidate (or tester) may be able to prove that you treated him or her differently.
2. Instead, use pattern or structured interviews. By asking the same questions of every job candidate, an employer can avoid the appearance of “disparate treatment,” the intentional disparity between the proportion of a protected group and the proportion getting the job.
3. Revisit EEOC guidelines, and all local employment opportunity laws.
4. Build an internal audit system to ensure that interviewers are treating all job candidates uniformly and consistently. Also, make sure they’re focusing on the skill requirements of the job and not on personal characteristics.

Source: “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1997) by Gary Dessler.

Editor’s Note: Workforce Department Editor Scott Hays signed up for a class titled “Human Resources Management,” as part of the HR/Management Certificate Program at the University of California, Irvine. Each week, he visits one nugget of knowledge from the course, helping you move in the direction of becoming a more strategic partner.

Today millions of U.S. workers belong to unions. And these aren’t just blue-collar workers, either. White-collar workers and public employees are also forming unions, mostly to get better working conditions and more pay, and to protect themselves from the whims of management.

In his book “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997), Gary Dessler suggests companies develop strategies for human resources professionals to effectively deal with unionization, “lest they commit unfair labor practices.” For example, it’s an unfair labor practice for employers to interfere with an employee’s right to self-organize, it’s an unfair labor practice for companies to discriminate in any way against employees for legal union activities, and it’s an unfair labor practice for employers to refuse to bargain collectively with employees’ representative.

If a charge of unfair labor practice is filed with the National Labor Relations Board, an investigation could lead to an injunction or an order that the employer cease and desist. To avoid such problems, writes Dessler, “employers should have rules governing distribution of literature and solicitation of workers and train supervisors in how to apply them.”

Dessler uses several sources to compile a number of steps you can take to legally restrict union organizing:

1. Non-employees can be barred from soliciting employees when they’re on duty, not on a break.
2. Employers can usually stop employees from soliciting other employees if one or both are on paid-duty time and not on a break.
3. Most employers can bar non-employees from the building’s interiors and work areas as a right of private property owners. In some cases, non-employees can be barred from exterior private property areas such as parking lots—if there’s a legitimate business reason and not just to interfere with union organizers.
4. Employees can be denied access to interior or exterior areas if the employers can demonstrate that the rule is required for reasons of production, safety or discipline.

In addition, writes Dessler, there are guidelines you can use to preserve a union-free work environment, including: detecting union organizing activity as early as possible; “remember that your best source is probably first-line supervisors;” never voluntarily recognize a union without a secret election supervised by the NLRB; present your case to your employees forcefully and relentlessly;” and postpone any elections as long as possible.

Finally, consider the option of not staying union-free. “Union membership may make health benefits available at group rates … and industry-wide or association-wide wage agreements can remove the burden of having to negotiate salaries and raises with each of your employees.”

SOURCE: “Human Resource Management” (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997) by Gary Dessler.

Long before psychologist and former New York Times reporter Daniel Goleman published his international bestseller, Minneapolis-based American Express Financial Advisors (AEFA) already had tapped into the power of “emotional intelligence.”

In 1992, AEFA researched why only 28 percent of customers the company advised had purchased life insurance. The official answer, it seemed, had little to do with policy coverage and cost. Rather, there appeared to be a direct correlation between the emotional intelligence of the company’s financial advisors and business success. It was hypothesized that if financial decisions are driven by emotion (pride, trust, a sense of security), and not just facts and figures, then developing the emotional competence (EC) of financial advisors just might drive more insurance policies.

Financial advisors who became more receptive to a client’s emotions were better able to discuss the relevance of a life insurance policy. For example, a financial advisor might not only talk about financial goals, but also how they can work together as a team, which helps build the client’s trust.

One year later, the company launched a program designed to help managers develop a greater awareness of their own emotional reactions and those of their clients, and to more fully appreciate the role of emotion in the workplace.

Kate Cannon is AEFA’s former director of leadership development and president of Minneapolis-based Kate Cannon and Associates, a consulting and training firm in the area of emotional intelligence. She says the EC program was developed to help leaders carry the company into the future. “So much had changed, we needed leaders who could support the business—leaders who were flexible and adaptable, who could develop relationships. There was a whole set of new characteristics that turned out to be based on emotional competencies.”

The company went through an evaluation process to identify the appropriate competency model. The in-house psychologist and program officers then developed a program covering all five domains of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, interpersonal effectiveness, social skills and empathy.

A follow-up experiment found that, as a group, the 60 or so financial planners who went through the original program outperformed their associates hands-down. “There’s a lot of emotion around the financial planning process,” says Pam Smith, program manager for the company’s Emotional Competence Program. “One way to build a better relationship with clients is to understand what emotions are driving their decisions.”

Soft-skills training creates better managers.
A more recent evaluation study suggests that participation in the program has contributed to an increase in sales revenue. For example, advisors of managers trained in emotional competence grew their businesses by 18.1 percent compared to 16.2 percent for those whose managers were untrained. “Individuals who have gone through our program have certainly seen that emotional competence applies not only to their professional lives, but to their own personal growth and development,” says Smith.

In fact, 88 percent of AEFA leaders who have completed the training say EC is important to job performance. And a July 1998 survey of human resources professions at Fortune 1000 companies would seem to concur that interpersonal skills are vital to an organization’s overall success. The survey, conducted by the Memphis-based communications firm O’Connor Kenny Partners, asked HR directors to rank the importance of training in 10 different communication skills. Interpersonal skills ranked highest, along with such other emotional competencies as listening and persuasion.

As of January 1996, every new financial advisor at AEFA must complete an emotional competence program as part of the training at the American Express Financial Advisors University in Minneapolis. The six-day session starts with how to recognize and talk about emotions, and how emotions affect people, especially in the workplace. Scattered throughout the rest of the program are courses on relationships and communication skills, and work/family balance. “We focus on creating greater success in our personal and professional lives through learning more about ourselves and communicating better with others,” says Smith.

Program costs can vary from business to business.
AEFA now employs more than 8,000 individuals and 9,000 advisors, and holds more than $210 billion in assets in the financial services industry. And since 1992, the company has provided training to roughly half of its field and leadership teams. Still, it often takes months or even years before someone effects change to his or her behavior. Ideally, you want employees to try out their new behavior on the job where it really counts. In the past at AEFA, it’s been a one-shot deal—a six-day training session and zero follow-up. Only recently have efforts been made by senior executives to incorporate EC training into some sales conferences and some quarterly performance reviews.

Still, the cost for setting up the program isn’t cheap. Cost per person can average anywhere from $100 to $1,500, based on the duration of the program and the instructor (and that’s not counting the millions of dollars American Express spent to implement the program). Advisors typically pay for the cost of the program, while the company subsidizes the course entirely for employees. “But that’s a relatively small investment compared to the potential return,” says Cannon. “In my 25 years of going through a million training programs, EC is the only one I know that has a positive impact. It produces behavioral changes at an individual level, which has an impact on everyday life.”

Last year, American Express conducted an extensive survey on employees who have gone through the program. More than 90 percent said the training was relevant to their jobs, and more than half of those surveyed said the training had a “significant” impact on business.

As author Goleman points out in his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Bantam Books, 1995), workplace rules are changing and everyone’s being judged not just by how smart they are, but also by how well they handle themselves and others. It’s a lesson clearly articulated at the corporate offices of American Express.

“You can change your emotional competence over a lifetime through purposeful activities, maturity and experience,” says Smith. “That’s why our leaders are trained first on emotional competence—so they can be more effective in relationships that benefit everyone—employer, employee and client.”

Thirty miles north of San Diego inCarlsbad, California, a miniature New York cityscape has been erected withmulticolored plastic interlocking bricks – just one of nearly 40 attractions andrides at the first U.S.-based LEGOLAND theme park.

    Although it’s animpressive sight, the real constru ction took place behind the scenes – brick bybrick, person by person – as the company’s human resources director, DonnaSchmidt, helped recruit and hire a new management team and create a uniquecorporate culture.

    The LEGO Group,based in Billund, Denmark, makes trademark LEGO toy sets, and will generateroughly $1.1 billion in revenue this year. LEGOLAND California, which openedMarch 20, 1999, is the company’s third theme park in the toy maker’s chain.

    Schmidt has been theHR director since March 1998. Not only did she and her staff recruit and hireroughly 1,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees, but she helped builda corporate culture that includes the concept of employees as “ModelCitizens.”

    Workforce spoke withSchmidt to learn about how HR operates at LEGOLAND California.

How difficult was the challengeto open a new theme park?

It was a challenge and aonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Since this was the first LEGOLAND theme parkin the United States, we had to develop and put in place a lot of newstrategies.

    One of our firstpriorities was to hire seven directors and 30 key managers. We also had toput our HR team in place, which was one of the first teams assembled. Webrought them in early to support staffing of the park. We now have nine HRmembers year round, plus an additional six who work on a part-time orseasonal basis.

How much lead-time did you giveyourselves to hire the directors and managers?

We started about 18 months beforeour opening to identify the team managers in the organization. A lot of itwas based on profiles that we had developed.

    We looked forpeople who are committed to creating a unique, family theme-park experience,and for core competencies in the theme-park industry. In other words, wesought people who could understand the business and get excited about it atthe same time.

It seems like a unique set ofqualifications. What recruitment techniques did you use?

We did a lot of networking withpeople in the industry, we used contacts with the International Associationof Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), and we did a large amount ofadvertising for qualified candidates. As a result, we have a wonderfulleadership team with a variety of experiences and background from across thecountry.

Did HR hire everyone fromlandscaping and maintenance people to entertainers?

We hired every discipline requiredto operate the park.

How much time did you spenddeveloping the LEGOLAND culture?

We spent a great deal of timecreating a high-performance environment focused on guest service. Certainlythe LEGO Group is rich in culture. The company is concerned about qualityand about the development of people. All the LEGO toy products are aboutcreativity, learning, play and getting children to use their imaginations.So we had a rich history and foundation from the LEGO Group, which helped usdefine how that would play out in a theme park – a relatively new businessunit of the LEGO Group.

How did you hammer home theculture within the management group?

We spent a lot of time defining ourvision statement and aligning that with the LEGO Group. We worked as a teamto define our mission, the purpose for why we exist, the values that wewanted to adopt in terms of what we stand for as a company. We then made ourdecisions and built our team around that.

    For example, wehave a banner focused on guest services (“Make someone a hero today”).After we got together as a team and created all of this, many strategieswere implemented to cement this culture. From there, we struggled andstruggled to find a unique name to refer to our employees, and that’s whenwe came up with Model Citizens (MCs). We really found this to be a key piecein shaping what we’re looking for at every level of the organization.

What sort of recruitingtechniques did you use to find your Model Citizens?

We recruited from a variety ofsources, we partnered with local educational institutions, and withcommunity, governmental and religious organizations. We were fortunateenough to have a lot of momentum from the media coverage of the park. Wealso held a dozen or so job fairs, where we screened, interviewed andselected candidates for these positions.

    We now have 850Model Citizens, and we’re still hiring and looking to bring on anadditional 250 year round, and another 250 during summer.

How does the concept of ModelCitizens contribute to the overall betterment of the company?

LEGOLAND is a country for kids, andin this country we have Model Citizens – ambassadors who serve as examplesfor our guests. We’re creating an experience here that’s veryinteractive.

    Our MCs haveclear roles and responsibilities. It’s up to them to ensure that weservice our guests well and exceed their expectations. We train LEGOLANDleaders to be open and approachable, and we encourage our people to takeresponsibility, to solve problems, resolve conflicts and get the informationthey need to do their jobs.

How do you train them to becomeModel Citizens?

It begins from the time they callour job line or hear about LEGOLAND. They fill out an application forcitizenship, not employment.    Everything we do is builtaround the concept that this is a place where if you want to come to work,you’re going to have to meet our standards and be a cut above the rest.

    We also share alot of information as part of our orientation, and we ask people who applyfor a position with us if they can meet the Model Citizen profile forLEGOLAND.

What sort of unique HR issuescome as a result of being a theme park?

Our park is built for children ages2 through 12, and we have to have people who enjoy working with children. Webuilt our Model Citizen program to help us focus on service and care of ourguests, and on how we treat each other.

    We have highexpectations for performance and behavior in the workplace. We drug test ourpeople and we conduct background checks. We’re also working with a rangeof people from age 16 to people just out of retirement. That’s verydiverse in terms of age, and variety of backgrounds and work experiences.

How do you keep the balance withsuch a diverse workforce?

Right now, we’re investing a lotof time training our MCs to be effective team members and team leaders. Ourpeople actually go through two full days of team training, which helps themunderstand their own work style and preferences for interacting with others,so that we can build on each other’s strengths and differences.

How do you monitor performanceand behavior?

We have key expectations that wecommunicate to our MCs, and we’ve trained our supervisors to beresponsible for the performance of their teams. We try to instill a sense ofownership and responsibility in every person to ensure that we’re ahigh-performance work place.

Is it tough to handle HR issueswhen your company is headquartered in Billund, Denmark?

Our corporate office for GlobalFamily Attractions here in Carlsbad operates autonomously and independentlyunder some very broad guidelines from the LEGO Group.

Have there been any HRdifferences as a result of working for a Danish company?

The biggest difference I see is theDanish culture is very communicative. This particular company reallyencourages a lot of openness, and we have a very people-orientedenvironment.

    Our policies andpractices are designed to ensure high performance and to recognize andreward people for doing quality work and managing themselves consistent withour values. We also assist people in their learning and development, andthat’s very much a LEGO value and the Danish culture.

How involved is HR with theday-to-day operation of the theme park?

Human resources is a partnershipbetween all of our departments, and we’re actively involved in supportingthe people who operate the park.

But doesn’t the theme parkindustry, in general, have a relatively high turnover rate?

Yes. Since we’ve only been openless than six weeks, it’s hard to say what our turnover will be. Sure,we’ve had some turnover, but mostly it’s that initiation process of justshaking things out.

    Altogether, wehave a stable workforce at LEGOLAND because we’ve created many corefull-time positions, and provided benefits our MCs’ need to supportthemselves, their families and their career objectives.

Workforce, July 1999, Vol.78, No. 7, pp. 78-80  SubscribeNow!

Welcome to the Newcourt employee services center’s automated system. Your call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes. To speak with an employee services center representative, press zero. To be connected to the external third-party service provider for medical, dental, vision, prescription drug program, reimbursement accounts or COBRA …

So it goes for the roughly 3,000 U.S. employees at Parsippany, New Jersey-based Newcourt Services—a leasing and asset-based financing company recently acquired by Livingston, New Jersey-based CIT Group.

To improve the efficiency of human resources services at the company’s headquarters and 50 satellite offices from Tennessee to Oregon, Newcourt designed a call center with enough computer firepower to manage its entire workforce. Now, if employees have questions about their 401(k) account, disability, or workers compensation, they just punch a few buttons on a telephone keypad and—presto!—they’re either connected to a voice-activated system, an HR specialist or transferred to a third-party service provider such as an insurance company or pension administrator.

The idea for a centralized call center came several years ago after the company redesigned its human resources department to cut costs and, at the same time, offer more management services. Newcourt went through the painstaking process of reclassifying all of its human resources services—separating the personnel-administration transactions from everything else.

“We weren’t even thinking about a call center in the beginning,” says John Gillen, Newcourt’s vice president of employee services and HRIS. “We learned rather quickly, though, that a call center would enable us to take advantage of protocols that improved services to employees, while also reducing costs. It wasn’t so much a strategy, but a way to implement a strategy.”

The so-called strategy focused on providing accurate, up-to-date employee information, and a higher level of service that could track cases and spot problems or trends. Newcourt already had a telecommunications hub that gathered phone lines and directed calls via an automatic call distribution switch. What it didn’t have was the knowledge to facilitate the process, so Gillen hired outside consultants from McLean, Virginia-based Talisman Technologies.

Through Talisman, Newcourt purchased computer software from which it built a knowledge-based system to help store answers to questions frequently asked about HR issues, and a case-management system to track calls coming into the service. All told, Newcourt spent roughly $150,000 for hardware, software, consulting services and employee communications tools. The project was funded slowly and over time.

“Newcourt has a number of sales people at different locations around the country,” says Jane Paradiso, president of Talisman Technologies. “Above all else, it needed the appropriate software and hardware to provide employees with consistent, reliable data in one location to address HR-related issues.”

Technology simplifies processes.
Newcourt went operational on October 12, 1997. The call center was promoted through the annual benefits sign-up and on every pay stub.

By centralizing most of the personnel-administration work at headquarters, the 12 offsite human resources managers at the 50 satellite offices can focus their attention strictly on people-management issues. Most of the questions that go to the call center are benefits and payroll-related. Employees use their social security number or employee identification number to access the call center via the phone with their requests.

Then an automatic call distributor picks up the call and transfers it to the appropriate HR agent, who pulls up the caller’s information on a computer screen to provide immediate help. One of the unique benefits of a call center is that it can be electronically updated and disseminated immediately, and accessed by employees when necessary. “It really has changed the role of HR management within our company,” says Gillen.

And it took less than a year before Newcourt realized a return on its investment. “Our HR professionals are becoming better business partners, working more closely with the managers and supervisors at our 50 satellite offices.”

Back at headquarters, the four in-house HR professionals are trained to more thoroughly understand the company’s policies and procedures. Calls coming into headquarters have gone from six calls per employee or an estimated 10,000 in 1998 to 10 calls per employee or an estimated 30,000 in 1999.

With technology comes change.
Of course, two years ago, most everyone wondered about the quality of service the call center would provide to individual employees. “We were almost afraid to answer the phones the first day,” says Gillen. “It required a whole new way of looking at work.”

The company’s biggest challenge was getting HR managers to overcome their reluctance to the program. They had a hard time accepting a call center as part of the HR process. Face-to-face encounters on personnel-administrative issues were virtually eliminated by offering one direct line to a personnel administrator at corporate headquarters. “We actually found that even though a lot of our HRpeople were accessible to employees, they didn’t always have the appropriate HR-related information,” says Gillen. “They’d have to call corporate for the answer, then get back to the employee. We eliminated those phone calls.”

Says Paradiso: “Personal ties are a concern for any HR professional. But for people who want quick answers to their questions, technology is the better choice. And unfortunately, it’s sometimes the HR staff who is most threatened. Call centers help upgrade the image of human resources professionals as being technology fluent, as opposed to a paper-shuffling, bureaucratic group.”

As Gillen notes, however, Newcourt’s human resource professionals quickly realized that employees were receiving better and faster service. “Those HR managers whose strength was paperwork efficiency—and not HR strategy—got lost in the shuffle.”

Since building the call center, Newcourt has realized about $250,000 in savings within the first year. Last year, the company conducted a survey-assessment of the call center by counting the number of people who used the service, and how many times they successfully got their questions answered on the first call. “HR has a bigger role now in the organization,” adds Gillen. “It’s more involved in the business issues on a level we’ve never seen before.”

Even though the high price of a call center can make it cost-prohibitive for many companies, Gillen says a company’s never too small to make management changes via technology. “A lot of companies don’t think they can have an HR call center because they’re too small. But it’s not just about reducing costs. It’s also about focusing HR people on strategic business issues. They’re no longer bogged down by endless questions about personnel-administrative issues—which means they’re better focused on people-management issues.”

Noone said it would be easy to find and retain roughly 5,000 qualified employeesin less than a year – especially in an industry that’s renowned for its highturnover rate. But where others failed, the Falls Church, Virginia-based CapitalOne Financial Corporation flourished – thanks, in part, to a series of humanresources strategies.

    Lastyear, Capital One realized another explosive 41 percent earnings growth. As oneof the nation’s largest issuers of Visa and MasterCard credit cards, withmore than 16.7 million customers and $17.4 billion in managed loans outstanding(as of December 31, 1998), the company found itself in the envious position ofhaving to quickly hire and train personnel for customer service, informationtechnology, marketing and management. After sifting through 40,000 résumés,the company enticed new employees and continued to keep the old ones bypromoting its existing corporate culture and compensation package.

    Tolearn about how Capital One continues to win the war for talent and keepturnover at under 10 percent, Workforce interviewed Dennis Liberson, thecompany’s senior vice president of human resources.

In roughly one year’s time, you hired 5,000associates to accommodate your company’s explosive growth. Where did you lookfor candidates?

Ourbusiness is about 75 percent nonexempt associates working in our call-centeroperations. We hire about one in every 12 people who apply for these jobs.Because we have tough selection standards, and because we didn’t want tocompromise the quality of our people, we needed to figure out a way to improveour flow of applications.

Wewent through close to 40,000 candidates to hire 3,800 nonexempt associates. Therest were IT professionals, operations managers, analysts, corporate staff andexecutives.

Oursingle largest source is internal associate referrals. We have a program inwhich our employees refer candidates and we pay them for successful hires. Wealso do a lot of paid media – both newspapers and radio. We’re not bigclassified advertisers, though. We’ve found that, typically, the only peoplewho read classified ads are those people looking for work, often because theydon’t have jobs. These people are not the most attractive candidates forCapital One.

Sowhere did you find the energy to sift through 40,000 résumés?

Formost of the jobs, we didn’t rely on résumés, per se. We first used avoice-response system. We had a number of questions that served as a screeningprocess: previous work experience, compensation levels, whether they’recurrently employed and why they want to change jobs. We screened approximately40 to 45 percent of our applicants this way. We also had an online applicationform and a credit screening. We then put people through a battery of tests:cognitive tests, personality tests, role-playing. The last phase was theinterview, in which we used a strict behavioral interview approach.

Canyou be more specific about the “strict behavioral interview” approach?

Ourbehavioral interview techniques are based on the premise that the best indicatorof future performance is a demonstrated behavior in a previous role. We may aska potential employee to give us an example of an interaction with a customerwhere the customer wasn’t satisfied with her or her answer. The candidatewould then take us through a real-life situation. We look for the existence ofpast behavior to predict future behavior.

Clearly, you didn’t sift through 40,000 candidatesyourself. How did you handle the flow?

Ifound people who knew the HR stuff – selection and recruitment. Then I broughtin managers who knew how to focus on operational or administrative processes. Inmy mind, the number one thing we did was put people in charge who were veryresults-oriented.

What were some of the challenges you faced in tryingto hire so many people at one time?

Thisprocess isn’t like human resources problem-solving. This process moved intothe realm of running a major business. One of the biggest challenges wasbuilding a strong enough system that allowed us to move people from one part ofthe hiring process to another without having them disappear on us. If you don’t handle it efficiently, people end up taking another job ordropping out of the pipeline altogether. You start to collapse under the weightof the process itself.

What sort of employment package did you offer togenerate a cachet of 40,000 candidates?

Wewant to differentiate ourselves through our benefits and compensation programs.We want people to select a career with Capital One, so we designed our benefitsprogram in a way that said, “We’re different.” To that end, we firstconducted focus groups to determine which benefits our current employees enjoyedthe most – time off from work, ability to save money – and we plowed money intobenefits that our associates said were important to them. Now we offer threeweeks of vacation in the first year of employment, three family-care days andemployee benefits that include up to a 9 percent company contribution to our401(k) plan.

WhichHR strategies did you find drive employee satisfaction?

We doa lot of associate listening at Capital One. We conduct surveys every sixmonths, even though every expert in the field said it couldn’t be done[because] people would become cynical. We think they’re wrong.

Ifyou can quickly turn around the results of your survey and communicate that toyour employees, they’re less cynical because they can see the results. Weactually provide people time on the job to go to a room and fill out theirsurveys and mail it or drop it in a box. As a result, we get huge participation.In fact, 93 percent of our associates participated in the last survey – a goodindication that people aren’t cynical of the process.

Wealso do a lot of modeling based on the results of our survey responses: “Wouldyou recommend employment with Capital One with a friend or family?” “Howlikely is it you’ll be employed at Capital One 12 months from now?” We thenlook at the other survey questions to see what drives those responses. We usethat analysis to help us set priorities.

Whatstrategies have you used to boost retention?

We’recareful about selecting people. Everyone goes through a week-long assimilationprogram during which we talk about the culture, competence and behavior thatemployees need to exhibit to be successful here. We’re very deliberate aboutletting them know what makes our company unique. We also spend a lot of timearound performance management and team building.

Theaverage manager will go through 10 days of training and development, includingan extensive six-month program in team effectiveness. The training begins with afour-day team-building program. We then have two-day follow-ups, every four tosix weeks for the full six-month period, with team meetings and coaching inbetween. We also train on people-management skills, and we just began a four-dayprogram on change management. In an environment where you grow as quickly as wedo, helping our managers understand how to deal with change is an importantskill, and it will help us increase retention.

Which is more important when hiring that many people -corporate culture or a compensation package?

They’reintertwined at Capital One. We believe people and culture are a source ofenduring competitive advantage. We spend a lot of time trying to build ourculture. We’re performance-oriented, we believe in entrepreneurship andownership. If you’re asking me is culture more important than just payingpeople a lot of money, then yes. But your compensation has to be integrated withyour entire culture. That’s why we’re successful at aligning our peoplearound corporate goals.

How do you go about creating an “entrepreneurial”environment that emphasizes creativity and growth?

We’rerelentless in pursuit of innovations. We keep a million balls in the air and wetry everything to see what works. We put emphasis on having only top-qualitytalent in the organization. We’re also fast to take things to the market, andflexible. We focus on people adding value and we work hard to let people knowwhat we expect of them. We do this by communicating how important it is that wepursue new ideas. We might test a new marketing program, and as a result wemight identify a target group of customers that we can mail new solicitationsfor credit cards.

It’sabout being relentless in pursuit of new ideas. We avoid hierarchicalorganizational structures and multiple signoffs that get in the way of tryingnew things. We also grant stock options to everyone in the company, and we’vepromoted our employee stock-purchase program. The real rewards come when thestock prices go up because we’ve created a company of owners.

You’re currently recruiting in the United Kingdom.Do you have any tips for HR pros who are recruiting abroad?

Recruitingoutside the United States is very much like recruiting inside the United States.You have to work back from the kind of organization you want to be and the kindof culture you want and then execute a people strategy. If those two thingsaren’t linked, I don’t think you have a chance to be effective. I believe alot of HR programs fail because there’s this soup-of-the-day mentality. As aresult, things are fairly disjointed. We work hard at making sure all our HRefforts point in the same direction.

Workforce,April 1999, Vol. 78, No. 4, pp. 92-94  SubscribeNow!

As long as he kept a low-profile and didn’t draw attention to himself, Gilberto Hernandez figured he could coast through life with limited reading and writting skills.

Hernandez dropped out of school in the ninth grade, entering the workforce because he needed money to pay for food, clothing and shelter. Prior to landing a job as a groundskeeper for the Phoenix Parks, Recreation and Library Department in 1997, Hernandez toiled as a janitor for the Phoenix Elementary School District. It was a good job that paid well.

Still, he was nagged by the notion he could do better, maybe one day even go to college. So last year, when the City of Phoenix offered Hernandez the chance to attend six hours of classes per week to improve his reading, writing and math skills, and work toward his General Equivalency Diploma, the 31-year-old groundskeeper returned to school for the first time in almost 20 years.

The Phoenix Literacy Program began in 1988 after a citywide study revealed that many employees lacked the basic skills to be considered “promotable.” The program has since served more than 1,000 city employees from seven different departments. “They come out with enhanced skills and increased self-esteem,” says June Liggins, Phoenix personnel curriculum and training coordinator. “The program has not only made for more productive city employees, but has met our demands for a future workforce.”

“Ever since I started taking classes,” says Hernandez, “I ve had a whole new outlook on life.”

Even Hernandez front-line supervisor, John Melisko, reports that “not only have his communication skills improved, but he seems more confident in himself. He always has been a good employee; now he s a better one.”

As much as 20 percent of the American workforce may be functionally illiterate. In everyday work life, this deficiency translates into secretaries who can t write letters free of grammatical errors, workers who can t read instructions that govern the operation of new machinery, and bookkeepers who can t manipulate the fractions necessary to compute simple business transactions.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance of Business (NAB) and the National Institute for Literacy estimate employees lack of basic skills results in a $60 billion loss in productivity for American companies each year. Why? Because workers who can t understand warning signs or shipping instructions cause mistakes, workplace accidents and damage to equipment.

According to a 1994 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2.2 percent of U.S. employers provided basic skills training. And the skills shortage will only get worse, thanks in part to the integration of information technology into the U.S. workplace. Gone are the relatively simple single-product assembly lines of yesteryear; in today s high-tech workplace, one assembly line may produce a dozen items, each with its own complicated set of directions.

As American companies retool to meet the demands of a new global economy, workers must continually upgrade their knowledge and skills to qualify as “promotable.” It s little wonder that U.S. presidents and pundits alike continue to hammer home the need to improve employee education, efficiency and well-being. There used to be a time when people who were functionally illiterate could find jobs. No longer. Modern economies demand a well-educated labor pool, and skills have become the key competitive weapon.

Employees skills are employers competitive edge.
The American Association for Career Education in Hermosa Beach, California, defines literacy as an individual s ability to read, write and speak in English, compute and solve basic math problems, and develop one s knowledge and potential through listening skills. Of course, it s undeniable that all of these skills should be taught in high school, but in many areas of the country, the nation s educational system can t be relied upon to produce literate graduates.

If you believe the research that some 20 percent of the U.S. adult workforce can t read the OSHA instructions posted on a wall, and the dearth of basic worker skills has a direct impact on company productivity, then how can you afford to ignore the problem? Yet most companies will spend money to implement, say, a new statistical process-control program, only to discover their workers don t have the ability to synthesize the information. As technology becomes even more footloose, employees skills become the employer s competitive edge.

Myron Kanning, vice president of human resources for Batesville Casket Co. in Batesville, Indiana, discovered several years ago that workers at his company s manufacturing plants didn t possess the skills necessary to conduct on-the-line quality analyses of burial caskets prior to the final control inspection station. “We tried to get our employees to assume more responsibility, which would have led to improved productivity, but they didn t have the confidence to handle even routine decisions,” recalls Kanning. “In order to move forward in a rapidly changing market, you have to make sure employees at lower levels can assume greater responsibility. But you can t empower someone who can t read and write.”

According to a 1998 survey by the Manufacturing Institute s Center for Workforce Success in Washington, D.C., one third of manufacturers report that job applicants have inadequate reading and writing skills, and nearly one fourth report that job applicants have inadequate oral and communication skills. It s estimated that deficient employee skills have prevented one in five manufacturers from expanding.

“We ve got a lot of smart machines, but few smart workers,” says Phyllis Eisen, executive director for the Center for Workforce Success. “As an industry, we re dancing as fast as we can to catch up. Manufacturers are spending billions of dollars every year on education and training just to make up for what other institutions have failed to do in the past. Right now, there s a huge lag in productivity on factory floors across the country because workers can t learn the new technology.”

There s definitely not a lack of funds available for adult literacy programs. Both the federal and state governments provide millions of dollars each year for adult-education and family-literacy programs; private sources expend additional millions. But the problem persists. And, more to the original point, as changes in the nature of work require accelerated skills and training, the lines between workers and supervisors and managers blur as “work teams” help raise creativity and productivity. Increasingly, those companies most dedicated to training their employees to do it better, faster and cheaper will get the jobs.

Enhanced employee skills mean better business.
Most everyone agrees illiteracy exists as a serious problem in society. Attitudes associated with workplace literacy problems, however, vary widely. Some CEOs and human resources managers believe a lack of basic skills in the workforce isn t their responsibility—that it s up to employees to learn on their own how to better read and write. Others realize they ve got to stop blaming the falling standards on someone else, and to stay competitive, workplace illiteracy must be treated like any other business crisis.

According to one survey canvassing more than 300 executives, 71 percent reported that basic written communication was critical to meeting the changing needs in the workplace, yet only 26 percent offered any kind of training. And while 47 percent of the executives recognized the need for workers to improve basic math skills, only 5 percent proffered any kind of basic math skills training.

So what s going on here?

Well, to begin with, HR managers know there are never any easy answers in solving a workforce problem—especially one as sensitive as adult illiteracy. At Batesville Casket Co., for example, a literacy program instituted several years ago failed to garner the support of its own employees. “They were too self-conscious to even come forward and participate,” says Kanning.

This is not at all atypical. It s estimated that 10 percent of the millions of Americans who can t read or write never participate in literacy programs simply because they don t want to admit, particularly to an employer, that they can t read or write.

“Research indicates the illiteracy stigma is comparable to that experienced by victims of sexual abuse,” says Jack Fenimore, president of Newburgh, Indiana-based Literacy Now, a nonprofit distributor of educational material. “A high percentage of people won t even admit to their own family members that they can t read and write.”

Raising adult literacy standards.
Although most HR managers realize, however loosely, the link between productivity and the basic skill level of employees, many still ignore the importance of workplace training in improving competitiveness. “Human resources managers need to ask themselves, ‘What improvements haven t we been able to do because of the low skill level of our workforce? ” says Steve Mitchell, senior director in workforce development for the National Alliance of Business.

So what can you do about it?

Too often, corporations spend money on employee training for managers, supervisors and salespeople, but ignore those at lower levels of the workforce. Time and resources need to be committed to solid training programs that will combat adult illiteracy. Between 1986 and 1994, for example, Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola Inc. spent $40 million to train 8,000 of its production workers in basic skills.

Around this same time, the company also started assessing job applicants who were interested in working for its factories. “We needed people with the skills and competencies to learn and apply new knowledge,” says Don Moretti, director of human resources selection and assessment for Motorola. A program was developed based on extensive job analysis. “We defined those requirements that would lead to success, then developed a test to measure those identifying components.”

The results? “People who scored high on the tests also possessed high performance skills,” says Moretti. “And people who scored low on the tests possessed low performance skills.”

The three-hour assessment test consists of multiple choice questions in four different areas: practical arithmetic, reading and comprehension, forms completion and visual tracing. There s also a video-based assessment tool. Moretti admits there s a certain investment that s needed by any company looking to develop an assessment tool, “but we have a dollar value that can show our return, over using just a non-valid selection process.”

The company finally discontinued its basic skills training in 1994, “mostly because our existing workforce had already been trained,” says Jim Frasier, manager of learning research and evaluation for Motorola University. “We also know that our incoming workforce has the required skills because they ve passed our assessment test.” These days, Motorola revalidates literacy and other workplace skills, but focuses mostly on how employees can improve their critical thinking skills.

Maintaining employees skills is crucial.
Helene F. Uhlfelder, Ph.D., is director with the Atlanta office of AnswerThink, a management consulting firm. She says that right now, there s a gap in the kinds of skills and knowledge Corporate America has and the kinds of skills and knowledge Corporate Americans will need in the future. “Which means you have two choices: You either screen applicants differently, or you train the ones in your existing workforce. It all comes down to priorities.”

And your priorities should meet not only the needs of your employees and customers, but also the needs of your company. The City of Phoenix came to the conclusion that programs had to be confidential, voluntary and customized. Other Phoenix features include attending classes on city time, courses matched to meet individual needs, and programs instituted at no cost to city departments. On the other hand, Batesville Casket Co. offers self-pacing and self-study. Managers should settle on whatever works best for each particular company.

“If we don t invest in our employees today, we won t maintain our industrial status in the world,” warns Eisen of the Center for Workforce Success.

Competitiveness in the 21st century will turn on the quality of the country s workforce, not just on its technology and management know-how. By creating an environment in which employees feel comfortable enough to improve their skills, employers not only engender loyalty, but increase productivity. Boosting employee literacy isn t just good social engineering, but an economic necessity.

Workforce, April 1999, Vol.. 78, No. 4, pp. 70-74.