Recruiting: The Dating Game

It seems the recruiting scene is bubbling in New York. Recently, I hear much more of people offering jobs than looking for them.

Technical co-founders are particularly in demand. A recruiter friend said they don't even attempt technical co-founder hires. It's not just about screening for skill sets and relevant experiences. Co-founders can be like spouses - with personalities, emotions and motivations all being major factors. It can get very complicated. You have to be a million dollar matchmaker to pull this off - it's just not worth it.

It's certainly not new. The last couple years top medical schools have started looking beyond just grades and scores and placing a huge on interpersonal and communication skills. As part of this, applicants must participate in a 'speed dating' process, rotating through a serious of 10 minute interviews. The financial services industry did their own invite-only 'Minute to Spin It' recruiting event. This type of event puts applicants in a social setting. It also showcases how companies are open to new and creative ideas.

There seem to be some good advantges to this format. If you thought of recruiting more like dating, what would you do differently? Flowers on the first date? Would you tell them about your crazy parents, or wait till the second or third date? Would you be more attuned to personality fit than you are now? Is it something you are willing to try?

You are what you learn. If all you know is how to be a gang member, that's what you'll be, at least until you learn something else. If you go to law school, you'll see the world as a competition. If you study engineering, you'll start to see the world as a complicated machine that needs tweaking. A person changes at a fundamental level as he or she merges with a particular field of knowledge. If you don't like who you are, you have the option of learning until you become someone else. There's almost nothing you can't learn your way out of. If you don't like who you are, you have the option of learning until you become someone else. Life is like a jail with an unlocked, heavy door. You're free the minute you realize the door will open if you simply lean into it.

Scott Adams in Dilbert.com

Scheduling 2012 Holidays

There is interesting stuff in this post, I promise! But first, The Basics: how many Holidays should you give and which ones?

For the first piece of the puzzle, I would consider eight (8) or nine (9) days as the average number of paid Holidays given in the U.S. I like nine as an average because it seems more companies I've worked with fall here, but a more recent report lists an average of eight. Obviously, there is room for interpretation and you can find lots of different stats, and variances across industries.

Next, I'm usually guided by the 2012 Federal Holiday schedule.

Monday, January 2*	New Year's Day
Monday, January 16	Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 20	Washington's Birthday/President's Day
Monday, May 28	Memorial Day
Wednesday, July 4	Independence Day
Monday, September 3	Labor Day
Monday, October 8	Columbus Day
Monday, November 12*	Veterans Day
Thursday, November 22	Thanksgiving Day
Tuesday, December 25	Christmas Day

* Typically, when the legal public holiday falls on Sunday, the following Monday is treated as a holiday for pay and leave purposes. Boom.

The Intermediates:
Your Holidays are part of you total benefit package. Consider your employee population, and other vacation, sick and benefits as you set your Holiday schedule.

And dude, don't forget to give the Friday after Thanksgiving off! Eating all that turkey and then having to come into work the next day when your friends don't have to would be memorably bad!

Consider the concept offering Floating Holidays, extra paid leave days to be designated by the employee. They're cool! Some folks would rather not recognize Columbus Day and might instead like to have their Birthday off or a Religious Holiday.

If you go this route, I'd start with at least the big six holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. (Big seven if you add the day after Thanksgiving). Many private business often observe only these days, and most everyone else has them, so they are good days to start with.

Floating Holiday Warning: Employees can be bummed that they have less official days off than their peers. It's easy to forget they have a Floating Holiday instead of Columbus Day, for example. At these times, it makes the benefit of Floating Holidays feel more like a lack of benefits. Communication, like sharing a Benefits Summary Sheet could help this. Floating days might pose a burden to schedule or productivity, if people are out at random days, instead of all at once. You might also be obligated to track floating days as earned and accrued time off.

Overall, keep in mind that paid Holidays is not something that is required by law, but rather is something offered by the employer to attract and retain employees. So, as much as your business can bear, be generous. Are your Holidays in accord with your overall HR strategy? Is your Holiday offering appealing? Do employees have related gripes? Frequently review your policy and change it if you need to.

A Great Recruiting Program

There are many ways to grow your team quickly, or simply to attract great talent. Let's take a quick look at Atlassian for some tips. Atlassian is a fast growing software development company planning to grow from 250 to 500 in the next few years. They've ramped up the team before and they know how to put some love and care into a recruiting program.

• First, take note - their website's career page and job descriptions are approachable, casual, and fun. It looks like they value the page and put some time and thought there. They list being 'open and transparent' as the #1 reason why people would want to work. That is significant by itself. To me, it signals they recognize why people really work: to really be part of something bigger, to be engaged in work, etc...

• A beefy referral program. To ramp up the team, they will shell out $10,000 for an internal referral and $2,000 for referrals from outside the company.

• They have parties and beer carts and that stuff.

• How about a weeks vacation before you start? Yeah. they do that. Sounds nice.

• Having a limo pick you up at the airport when you arrive into town, sending you on a hiking tour, and out to a nice lunch with your partner to start things off.

• Make staffing agencies work for you efficiently! Atlassian came up with a very clever idea to drive better performance from staffing agencies while significantly reducing the amount of time involved managing the process. They created a 'bounty'. Any agency can submit resumes for open jobs, but they can only send in 4 candidates. IF Atlassian hires one of the candidates, they will continue to do business with the agency. If they don't use any of the 4, they won't work with the agency again. You can imagine the agencies scrutinizing candidates before sending them along. Brilliant. Good for the company and good for the (good) agencies.

• When the new employee starts, they get a T-shirt, some chocolate, pen and paper, computer and chair set with workstation and user accounts set up in advance. And a welcome card. That's enough to make them brag to friends.

There are lots of different ways you can attract great talent. What are you doing?

Don't Forget Your Daily Impact

Startups face crucial decisions everyday. What projects will you take, who will work on them, where should resources be allocated, and when is it alright to stray from previously agreed upon strategy?

During all of this, many of us forget the impact each employee can have. It's easy to see the CEO's decision making power. We might see a how a project manager tackles a problem. But we don't always see the power every person brings with them each day to work.

Understand your daily impact and foster employees to bring their power to the organization.

Creating an environment where each person knows they change the course of business is exciting. There are new ideas and new momentum. It increases the chance people will step up and deliver.

As a leader, do you find easy opportunities to allow people to speak up? How often are your actions squashing new ideas? How are you harnessing and directing energy and ideas?

Your Employees Work Magic You Don't Know About...

I always listen to This American Life on NPR. Not long ago they reran a story that reminded me of people and process and how easy it is to under-appreciate all the dynamics that makes your business tick.

The story was about the Vienna Beef sausage company of Chicago, who made an excellent product and were a company on the grow. To handle their growth, they even moved to a bigger and better facility on the Northside.

Once they moved, the sausages weren't the same. It was the same recipe and the same process, but they didn't the same deep red color nor the snap and smokiness that made the dogs so popular.

Everyone knew it. For a year and a half after the move people pontificated about the reasons - was it the water? The new equipment?

No. It was Irving. Employees at the new plant remembered Irving, who did not move with the company to the Northside. His job, at the old plant, was to transport the sausages from the cold room, through a maze of hallways, through the boiler room, up the elevator, and to the smokehouse. Turns out, the sausages would warm up in the half hour trip. The new efficient facility didn't allow for this step. But it was the secret sauce! They have since fixed the issue, with a high-tech Irving Room to replicate his walk.

Are you sure you know what makes you successful? You usually don't get to see it as clearly as Vienna Beef. Don't forget the forces working beyond your spreadsheets, your process, and your equipment. Take some time to Manage By Wandering Around.

HR with an Iterative Approach

Too often, human resources initiatives are seen as locked in stone. Policies are set and often forgotten. "That's how we do things around here." HR practices become blockades to how people can operate in the organization - and how effective the human resources function is. Sure, there may be reasons why you have stifling policies and procedures in place - but you should be able to easily explain these reasons, why they are important to employees and the organization, and embrace the opportunity to change them.

Software improves with each release. Product offerings, financial targets, and customers profiles all seem to be more dynamic than human resource initiatives. They change with new pieces of information. With each failure and success.

So should your HR practices.

Does the incentive plan drive cooperative behaviors? Does your health plan provide good utility to employees and make financial sense? Do performance reviews impact performance and do you use them to guide decisions down the road? How do you post jobs and interview? Can employees work from home?

Whenever appropriate, examine the purpose of the policy and the behavior it produces. Is it reinforcing the beneficial behavior? Does it produce negative outcomes? Is it necessary? Can it be simplified, clarified, or improved?