The Happy Burro

(Sixth in a series for Managers - to end this year and prepare for next year)

In the last post, Be A Net Exporter of Talent, we discussed the importance of engaging, developing, and promoting your best people. If all goes well, you’ll be providing outstanding talent throughout your organization. That means you’ll have positions to fill. This strikes fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned managers. Here is some help:

THE JOB POSTING

You write the job posting. That’s right, not your Human Resources representative or the recruiter. Some key areas:

1. Hire for the organization, not just for your specific job.

2. Hire someone that can be a long term fit for the organization, not a short term fill for your current opening.

3. Take time to review what competencies and behaviors are key for the position - and re-write the existing job description to fit.

WORKING WITH RECRUITING

Meet in person, if possible, and lay out what and who you’re looking for. Don’t accept less. It is a disservice to your organization, your existing team, and yourself, to just accept what the candidate pool offers. If you have specific minimum competencies, keep the job open. Some short term pain will be worth it in the long run. Remember, the most important work you do is the hiring of employees.

BE PREPARED

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew exactly who would be replacing each person on your team? Or who you were preparing to take on your position when you move to your next challenge? It is possible!

1. In your quarterly review with your manager, discuss who you think would be best to replace you. If your manager isn’t open to this kind of talk, keep the list to yourself. Hopefully, you’ll be able to guide your manager to be reviewing all of their direct reports for the best replacements - you would just be helping them with some recommendations.

2. Quarterly, meet with your peer management team and put up the department organizational chart. Review each direct report of each team. Facilitate a discussion about three key questions:

A. Who should we look at replacing in the organization? These are possibly poor fits, under-performers, or those that will be moving onto other challenges in the next 6-12 months.

B. Who do we want in our organization? You know who the stars are in other departments. Put a plan in place to get them to work for a while in your area.

C. Who do we think will be approached by other departments or companies in our department that we are not prepared to release just yet? Put a plan in place to increase their engagement and opportunity.

YOUR BEST WORK
It is never easy to have to replace key employees. The time you will spend hiring, training, and developing new staff will take a lot of your time. Guess what? It is supposed to - it is your job.

The Management Year-End Series

1. Learning from the mistakes of previous years.

2. Setting SMART goals for your team.

3. Show you are committed to making this team work.

4. Stellar development plans for everyone.

5. Becoming a net exporter of talent for your organization.

_________

NEXT - Onboarding your new people.

Stumble it!

Joe Raasch :: Dec.07.2007 :: Employee Engagement, Leadership, Performance Management ::

Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed