For many line managers and employees, human resources and recruitment are almost synonymous. Mention HR, and the first thing they say is, “HR’s job is to hire the right people to get the job done.”
Of course, HR professionals focus on a broad and varied range of issues in addition to recruitment. Effectiveness in hiring people remains fundamental to the success of the organization.
In this issue, we take a look at a number of new publications on hiring and related topics: retention, managing different generations at work, terminations and overall employment laws and policies that govern selection, as well as other HR activities.
The Harvard Business School Guide to Finding Your Next Job
By Robert Gardella, 143 pages, Harvard Business School Press (2000), 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
Here’s the other side of the coin from recruitment: a detailed guide for management and professional readers planning or executing a career move. Gardella works in alumni career services at Harvard, and covers all aspects of the process including:
•Developing your résumé and references
•Preparing effective letters
•Primary techniques for networking and targeting organizations
•Overcoming age discrimination
•Handling interviews
•Negotiating job offers.
Along the way, there’s lots of advice on the psychological realities: staying organized, being realistic, maintaining life balance and persevering in the search.
Performance-Based Selection
By Stephen Jackson, 105 pages, HR Strategy Publications (2000), www.hrstrategy.com
This book provides a systematic approach to selection, aimed at overcoming “the recurring problems that plague many recruitment and selection processes – time and cost inefficiencies, low validity and reliability, high turnover and high potential for grievances and litigation.”
Some of the common errors:
•Far too many rounds of interviews
•60 per cent of applicants who should never have made it to the interview process
•Using the number of years of prior experience as a prerequisite, rather than ability to do the specific job in question.
Jackson, a consultant specializing in selection and a regular contributor to Canadian HR Reporter, outlines a step-by-step performance based method covering:
•Job analysis and job descriptions
•Advertisements
•Résumé screening
•Realistic job previews
•Micro assessments and rating scales
•Interviewer training
•Interview structure
•Reference checking
•Orientation
Each chapter gives discussion points, key features, sample materials and step-by-step instructions.
Executive Selection
By Valerie Sessa and Jodi Taylor, 174 pages, Jossey-Bass (2000) available from Wiley Canada, 1-800-567-4797, www.wiley.com
This book describes a crisis in senior level selection and offers an approach to addressing in the context of four organizational systems: production, control, learning and rewards.
“The Center for Creative Leadership has studied executive selection for years. Its researchers have interviewed hundreds of executives, analyzed the decision-making styles of the people who make selections, and studied the latest management and psychological literature on the subject.”
The resulting system covers these steps:
•Choose the selection committee
•Map the challenge (assess the organization, outline job and candidate requirements)
•Recruit the right candidates
•Make the decision (fit selection tools to the information you need, treat all candidates similarly)
The book also addresses follow-through to develop and support the candidate to ensure success, as well as the differences between internal and external selection processes.
Love ‘em or Lose ‘em: Getting good people to stay
By Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, 235 pages, Berrett-Koehler (1999) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
The hot issue of retention is tackled in a big picture perspective here: are you serious about keeping people? If so, here are 26 strategies, including:
•Do you know what they want?
•Who’s in charge of keeping them?
•Expand options and support growth
•Provide recognition
The book contains several snappy chapter headings like:
•Mentor: be one
•Jerk: don’t be one
•Kicks: get some
•Truth: tell it
•Space: give it.
Harvard professor and author Rosabeth Moss Kanter is quoted, “This charming, clever, practical and user-friendly book is a great desk-side coach for anyone who manages people.”
Generations at Work
By Ron Zemke, Claire Raines and Bob Filipczak, 280 pages, Amacom (2000) 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
The subject of hiring leads to the question of workforce diversity – and one of the current hot topics for writers and speakers is the mix of generations that we experience today.
“Charlie, for example, is 61 and desperate for some clear, straightforward guidance from his 43-year-old boss, Mary, who, in turn, is using her trademark heartfelt, buzzword-laden management style in an attempt to radically alter Charlie’s work processes. Jane, meanwhile, the 29-year-old technical wizard of the team, sits sullenly in her cubicle, unimpressed with either of them, nor they with her.
“None of them understands the other. None of them knows how to communicate with the other. And it’s causing headaches and havoc for managers trying to mold this hodgepodge of ages, faces, values, and views into a productive, collaborative group.”
The book profiles four generations: veterans (born 1922 – 43), baby boomers (1943 – 60), Gen Xers (1960 – 80) and ‘nexters.’ There are case studies and pointers related to managing and motivating, job growth and enrichment, building teams, sales and service, training and recruiting.
Pigeonholed in the Land of Penguins
By Barbara Hateley and Warren Schmidt, 166 pages, Amacom (2000) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
This book offers a parable or “tale of seeing beyond stereotypes” and would apply not only to employee selection, but to general culture change and awareness building in support of organizational diversity. It’s written in the form of a quickly read poem, and will appeal to those readers who find stories an effective learning medium.
After the story, there’s a summary of key learning points followed by checklists for understanding how we stereotype ourselves and others, and strategies for reducing stereotyping. Readers will also find a quiz on pigeonholing oneself, and being pigeonholed by others.
Hiring, Managing and Keeping the Best
By Monica Beauregard and Maureen Fitzgerald, 261 pages, McGraw-Hill Ryerson (2000) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
A title in the Canadian Small Business Solutions Series, this pragmatic guide to selection and other HR functions has clear explanations, examples and tips that practitioners in larger organizations may also find useful. Content includes best practices and legal considerations.
A chapter on “before you start to recruit” covers identification of staffing needs, job analysis and descriptions, and determining feasibility of hiring.
Other chapters address targeting the right candidates; selection methods including screening, interviews and reference checking; administration of compensation, benefits and taxes; and “keeping the best and brightest” through positive work environment and opportunities for growth.
Finally, “a breakdown in the relationship” deals with performance problems, and termination. In the appendix are employment standards and human rights highlights for each province and territory.
Comprehensive Carswell Resources
Information services from Carswell (www.carswell.com) provide Canadian practitioners with leading edge facts and guidance in the form of comprehensive volumes in three-ring binder formats with regular updates purchased on a renewable basis.
Expert authors and contributions from organizations across the country provide legal and practical content for quick reference when needed. Examples and formats for materials are also included.
Here are some titles and sample content areas, related to recruitment, staffing and general HR policy and practice:
Best Practices: Recruitment and Selection
•Internal and external recruitment methods.
•Human resources planning (forecasting, job analysis and evaluation).
•Application forms and résumés as screening tools.
•Laws affecting hiring, including definition of employee and human rights.
•Interviewing (types of interviews, how to prepare and conduct).
•Employee testing.
•Selection processes.
•Reference and background checks.
•The hiring decision and post-hire requirements.
Best Practices: Terminations
•Creating a termination process.
•Managing senior executive terminations.
•Legal considerations (relevant statutes, breach of contract, constructive termination).
•Disciplinary discharge (just cause, union and non-union environments).
•Resignation and retirement.
•Severance design and payment.
•Downsizing.
•Life afterward: survivors and reengineering, restructuring.
•Career transition services.
Sample policies on corrective action, dismissal, exit interviews and numerous related subject areas.
Employment Policies that Work: 2 volumes
This two-volume set contains policy examples, and guides the entire process of developing and applying HR policies. Introductory sections provide an overview of what are policies and procedures, why they are needed, and who should do what in the process of developing them. There’s also guidance on evaluating and revising policies on a regular basis.
The actual content is comprised of extensive sample policies representing a wide range of organizational sizes and sectors. Sections include:
•Employee selection and assignment.
•Compensation – salary and payroll administration.
•Benefits administration.
•Terms and conditions of employment.
•Employee relations, human rights.
•Occupational health and safety.
•Termination.
The editors emphasize that, “no single policy is suitable for every organization. Each organization’s policy should reflect its own business needs and organizational culture, as well as some legal needs that will differ between provinces.”
Templates are provided on accompanying computer diskettes.
Canadian Employment Law Factbook
This volume was designed “to provide quick answers to questions concerning Canadian employment law” – not the full contents of the statutes themselves, but the issues that most frequently confront practitioners.
The first chapter covers the federal jurisdiction under the following headings:
•Employment and labour standards.
•Employment equity.
•Federal contractors program.
•Human rights.
•Labour relations.
•Occupational health and safety.
•Pay equity.
Similar content areas are addressed in a chapter for each province as well as Yukon and N.W.T.
Ray Brillinger is a senior consultant with the IBM Consulting Group. He provides change management, business transformation and organization effectiveness services to client organizations. He can be reached at (905) 316-4646 or [email protected].
Of course, HR professionals focus on a broad and varied range of issues in addition to recruitment. Effectiveness in hiring people remains fundamental to the success of the organization.
In this issue, we take a look at a number of new publications on hiring and related topics: retention, managing different generations at work, terminations and overall employment laws and policies that govern selection, as well as other HR activities.
The Harvard Business School Guide to Finding Your Next Job
By Robert Gardella, 143 pages, Harvard Business School Press (2000), 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
Here’s the other side of the coin from recruitment: a detailed guide for management and professional readers planning or executing a career move. Gardella works in alumni career services at Harvard, and covers all aspects of the process including:
•Developing your résumé and references
•Preparing effective letters
•Primary techniques for networking and targeting organizations
•Overcoming age discrimination
•Handling interviews
•Negotiating job offers.
Along the way, there’s lots of advice on the psychological realities: staying organized, being realistic, maintaining life balance and persevering in the search.
Performance-Based Selection
By Stephen Jackson, 105 pages, HR Strategy Publications (2000), www.hrstrategy.com
This book provides a systematic approach to selection, aimed at overcoming “the recurring problems that plague many recruitment and selection processes – time and cost inefficiencies, low validity and reliability, high turnover and high potential for grievances and litigation.”
Some of the common errors:
•Far too many rounds of interviews
•60 per cent of applicants who should never have made it to the interview process
•Using the number of years of prior experience as a prerequisite, rather than ability to do the specific job in question.
Jackson, a consultant specializing in selection and a regular contributor to Canadian HR Reporter, outlines a step-by-step performance based method covering:
•Job analysis and job descriptions
•Advertisements
•Résumé screening
•Realistic job previews
•Micro assessments and rating scales
•Interviewer training
•Interview structure
•Reference checking
•Orientation
Each chapter gives discussion points, key features, sample materials and step-by-step instructions.
Executive Selection
By Valerie Sessa and Jodi Taylor, 174 pages, Jossey-Bass (2000) available from Wiley Canada, 1-800-567-4797, www.wiley.com
This book describes a crisis in senior level selection and offers an approach to addressing in the context of four organizational systems: production, control, learning and rewards.
“The Center for Creative Leadership has studied executive selection for years. Its researchers have interviewed hundreds of executives, analyzed the decision-making styles of the people who make selections, and studied the latest management and psychological literature on the subject.”
The resulting system covers these steps:
•Choose the selection committee
•Map the challenge (assess the organization, outline job and candidate requirements)
•Recruit the right candidates
•Make the decision (fit selection tools to the information you need, treat all candidates similarly)
The book also addresses follow-through to develop and support the candidate to ensure success, as well as the differences between internal and external selection processes.
Love ‘em or Lose ‘em: Getting good people to stay
By Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, 235 pages, Berrett-Koehler (1999) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
The hot issue of retention is tackled in a big picture perspective here: are you serious about keeping people? If so, here are 26 strategies, including:
•Do you know what they want?
•Who’s in charge of keeping them?
•Expand options and support growth
•Provide recognition
The book contains several snappy chapter headings like:
•Mentor: be one
•Jerk: don’t be one
•Kicks: get some
•Truth: tell it
•Space: give it.
Harvard professor and author Rosabeth Moss Kanter is quoted, “This charming, clever, practical and user-friendly book is a great desk-side coach for anyone who manages people.”
Generations at Work
By Ron Zemke, Claire Raines and Bob Filipczak, 280 pages, Amacom (2000) 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
The subject of hiring leads to the question of workforce diversity – and one of the current hot topics for writers and speakers is the mix of generations that we experience today.
“Charlie, for example, is 61 and desperate for some clear, straightforward guidance from his 43-year-old boss, Mary, who, in turn, is using her trademark heartfelt, buzzword-laden management style in an attempt to radically alter Charlie’s work processes. Jane, meanwhile, the 29-year-old technical wizard of the team, sits sullenly in her cubicle, unimpressed with either of them, nor they with her.
“None of them understands the other. None of them knows how to communicate with the other. And it’s causing headaches and havoc for managers trying to mold this hodgepodge of ages, faces, values, and views into a productive, collaborative group.”
The book profiles four generations: veterans (born 1922 – 43), baby boomers (1943 – 60), Gen Xers (1960 – 80) and ‘nexters.’ There are case studies and pointers related to managing and motivating, job growth and enrichment, building teams, sales and service, training and recruiting.
Pigeonholed in the Land of Penguins
By Barbara Hateley and Warren Schmidt, 166 pages, Amacom (2000) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
This book offers a parable or “tale of seeing beyond stereotypes” and would apply not only to employee selection, but to general culture change and awareness building in support of organizational diversity. It’s written in the form of a quickly read poem, and will appeal to those readers who find stories an effective learning medium.
After the story, there’s a summary of key learning points followed by checklists for understanding how we stereotype ourselves and others, and strategies for reducing stereotyping. Readers will also find a quiz on pigeonholing oneself, and being pigeonholed by others.
Hiring, Managing and Keeping the Best
By Monica Beauregard and Maureen Fitzgerald, 261 pages, McGraw-Hill Ryerson (2000) at bookstores or 1-800-565-5758, www.mcgrawhill.ca
A title in the Canadian Small Business Solutions Series, this pragmatic guide to selection and other HR functions has clear explanations, examples and tips that practitioners in larger organizations may also find useful. Content includes best practices and legal considerations.
A chapter on “before you start to recruit” covers identification of staffing needs, job analysis and descriptions, and determining feasibility of hiring.
Other chapters address targeting the right candidates; selection methods including screening, interviews and reference checking; administration of compensation, benefits and taxes; and “keeping the best and brightest” through positive work environment and opportunities for growth.
Finally, “a breakdown in the relationship” deals with performance problems, and termination. In the appendix are employment standards and human rights highlights for each province and territory.
Comprehensive Carswell Resources
Information services from Carswell (www.carswell.com) provide Canadian practitioners with leading edge facts and guidance in the form of comprehensive volumes in three-ring binder formats with regular updates purchased on a renewable basis.
Expert authors and contributions from organizations across the country provide legal and practical content for quick reference when needed. Examples and formats for materials are also included.
Here are some titles and sample content areas, related to recruitment, staffing and general HR policy and practice:
Best Practices: Recruitment and Selection
•Internal and external recruitment methods.
•Human resources planning (forecasting, job analysis and evaluation).
•Application forms and résumés as screening tools.
•Laws affecting hiring, including definition of employee and human rights.
•Interviewing (types of interviews, how to prepare and conduct).
•Employee testing.
•Selection processes.
•Reference and background checks.
•The hiring decision and post-hire requirements.
Best Practices: Terminations
•Creating a termination process.
•Managing senior executive terminations.
•Legal considerations (relevant statutes, breach of contract, constructive termination).
•Disciplinary discharge (just cause, union and non-union environments).
•Resignation and retirement.
•Severance design and payment.
•Downsizing.
•Life afterward: survivors and reengineering, restructuring.
•Career transition services.
Sample policies on corrective action, dismissal, exit interviews and numerous related subject areas.
Employment Policies that Work: 2 volumes
This two-volume set contains policy examples, and guides the entire process of developing and applying HR policies. Introductory sections provide an overview of what are policies and procedures, why they are needed, and who should do what in the process of developing them. There’s also guidance on evaluating and revising policies on a regular basis.
The actual content is comprised of extensive sample policies representing a wide range of organizational sizes and sectors. Sections include:
•Employee selection and assignment.
•Compensation – salary and payroll administration.
•Benefits administration.
•Terms and conditions of employment.
•Employee relations, human rights.
•Occupational health and safety.
•Termination.
The editors emphasize that, “no single policy is suitable for every organization. Each organization’s policy should reflect its own business needs and organizational culture, as well as some legal needs that will differ between provinces.”
Templates are provided on accompanying computer diskettes.
Canadian Employment Law Factbook
This volume was designed “to provide quick answers to questions concerning Canadian employment law” – not the full contents of the statutes themselves, but the issues that most frequently confront practitioners.
The first chapter covers the federal jurisdiction under the following headings:
•Employment and labour standards.
•Employment equity.
•Federal contractors program.
•Human rights.
•Labour relations.
•Occupational health and safety.
•Pay equity.
Similar content areas are addressed in a chapter for each province as well as Yukon and N.W.T.
Ray Brillinger is a senior consultant with the IBM Consulting Group. He provides change management, business transformation and organization effectiveness services to client organizations. He can be reached at (905) 316-4646 or [email protected].
