On board the HRM Committee of Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry

I am extremely thrilled and honoured to be a member of the HRM Committee hosted by Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 

I'm thoroughly excited to work towards contributing innovative, cutting edge HR practices to enable organisations to enhance their success . Lots of learning opportunties on the way. Thanks to #BCCI

My views on DEI

 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - these words are creating a lot of noise, especially on social media.

Here are my basic views on DEI.

Hiring for Emotional Intelligence

From the article on #hiring for #emotionalintelligence - "The problem is that we struggle to assess EI when hiring (even when we spend a fortune on personality tests and search firms) and we’re never taught how".

Read the article here

To know how to hire for this and other competencies / behaviours, please connect with me to know about my customized #bei workshop #SelectionDiscussion that covers EI and more.

You can read about it here- https://ryanbarretto.blogspot.com/p/recruiting-right-fit.html

The Great Attrition is making hiring harder. Are you searching the right talent pools?

Recruitment has taken on a slightly different dimension over the past year or so. While it was never easy, it seemed as if we knew who to focus our hiring efforts on.

Here's a detailed article on the changing characteristics of the #talentpool of #candidates given the post pandemic environment, and what organizations could possibly do to hire people.

From the article: " if the economic picture worsens, many companies are likely to find that job openings will persist in crucial positions, a problem they can’t fix by simply reshuffling their current workforces."

Read the rest of the article here.

#hiringstrategy #employeevalueproposition #selectiondiscussion #culturematters #organizationculture #strengthsdecoder #strengthscoaching #performancecoach #performancecoaching #talentacquisition #talentattraction #employeeengagement

Upskilling instead of hiring

Fascinating article that discusses #upskilling of employees based on #potential as well as #performance.

To me, the line "Lead employees to a role they love by helping them identify whether their current role matches their natural interests." talks of building a #strengthsbased #organization. Just substitute the word 'interests' with 'strengths'. Of course, this means you inculcate this in the hiring process first, so that #peopledevelopment becomes more easier.

Read the rest of the article here.

Participant Feedback - The Selection Discussion (A Behavioural Event Interviewing Workshop)

Thrilled to share participant feedback and learning for one of my key workshops, "The Selection Discussion", which was conducted for an IT organization.

This program was conducted on Zoom for about 35 very enthusiastic and curious participants from HR Recruiters to Function Heads, who made the workshop more interesting by the participation and interesting questions. My workshop designs always focus on learning and application, not just learning or smiley sheets, and this was no exception. So, since recruitment is a sales role, we spent most of Day one identifying and articulating the selling points of the organization, and how to showcase them to prospective candidates. Day Two was spent in designing BEI questions, assessing responses, role plays,  

I used Zoom breakout rooms, Jamboard, and Mentimeter to increase the participant's engagement, and they really worked well, as you will see from the participants learning.

Please reach out to me on +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com if you want to run a similar workshop for your organization.

Top Behavioural Skills for the Leader / Employee of Today / the Future

Pic Credit - Ryan Barretto Oct 2011

I'd like to talk about a topic that comes out nearly every year around this time, in the media.  The topic is 'Skills for the year _____".  After going through them over the past 4/5 years, I noticed that the skills that get mentioned there are pretty much the same (when you think about it), and are simply renamed and given a different ranking by whoever generates the list.

Based on my experience (it's a fair amount - go see my LinkedIn profile to know details) in HR and now as a Strengths-based Career Coach, HR Consultant, Trainer, and Facilitator, I decided to come up with my own list of Behavioural skills for the future, though with some detail so that readers are clear about what the skill means in life and at work.  Behavioural skills are what help ensure that candidates are selected / rejected, but let's be clear - poor demonstration of Functional capabilities (skills related to your function i.e. Finance, Marketing, Sales, IT, HR and so on), will definitely ensure that you get rejected or won't be able to stay in the organization very long.

There is no particular order, because in my view, you better go about developing them as best as you can, and as a lifelong habit.  This list also doesn't include functional skills because they will be different for every job.  As a candidate, you should be on top of your game in this area, in order to stand a chance.

Now, as an individual employee, you might think - I'm a seasoned professional, so this may be suitable for a fresher or a junior person. Let's be clear - These are skills which if used throughout your personal and professional life, will earn you rich dividends.  

Then, if you happen to be a recruiter for an organization, you may not think this to be relevant. I can say with confidence that your organization will become more successful and effective by incorporating these skills into the Employee Development Plan.  As proof, notice that successful people around you (especially those you know well and without prejudice) will also have these same skills, no matter what their age, background or industry is.

Another thought to consider : To execute these skills, you have to develop a subset of related skills.  For example, to be able to Communicate with Clarity, you must possess / develop Listening Skills, develop the ability to appropriately Apply a vast Vocabulary, Clear Diction, the ability to State your point Concisely and Precisely, a level of Analytical skills to be able to provide a detailed response when required, applying the appropriate emotion and tone to your words, and as with any communication, the skill of timing your response.

As you can see, the skills are layered with other skills, and some will even be interconnected with the ones I have mentioned. You are going to have to go deep.

So, here are the skills for the future (whatever the timeline may be):

pexels-antoni-shkraba-4348401

Digital capability skills are non-negotiable today i.e. being familiar with a computer, applications like MS Office is a base requirement no matter where in the organization you are joining. If you have learnt some statistical tools and are keen on analytical roles, make sure they're upto date. 

Pexels Photo by Anna Shvets

Analytical skills are becoming more relevant, along with the ability to think first and then act.  If you are into specialist analytical roles, then some statistical tools are going to be required tool.

Pexels Photo by Pixabay

Constant learning, followed by reflection (introspection) and application - why? knowledge is growing by leaps and bounds daily, and we must be relevant to the times and our work / careers, or get left behind because of redundancy.  This also means being open to viewpoints that are vastly different from the beliefs you hold.  

pexels photo-yan-krukov-9069214

Communicate with clarity - because if you cannot communicate your knowledge (jargon free), experience and perspective clearly enough to be understood by others, then why should you be hired or promoted?  In fact, why should anyone pay attention to what you say?

pexels photo-cottonbro-studio-8102738

Influencing others - this is what I term as advanced level of communicating with clarity.  Simply put, you are able to get other people to agree and work with your point of view.

Pexels Photo by Pixabay

Emotional Intelligence - to understand  yourself, your emotions and the emotions of others without getting carried away & making ineffective decisions.  

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Flexibility in approach - this allows you to sense and act based on external environment situations that shift quickly. If you are stuck to your ideas & brilliance too much, you may not be able to provide quality work, listen and work well with others and be effective in your role. As the song goes - "The Future's uncertain and the end is always near".  So how adaptable can you be?

Pexels Photo by Hilmi Işılak

Working well with others - a.k.a. Collaborate.  This is a very critical skill because today, no single person is 100% talented in all areas of life and work, nor does one person, at any level have the all the answers.  I will include the ability to respect others here, because it is very hard to collaborate with someone you don't respect.

Photo by Ryan Barretto Oct 2013

Resilience - The ability to bounce back from failure to failure with a positive, can-do mindset, until you reach success.

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Consistently delivering value - It is the skill of applying all of the aforementioned skills with thought to provide service which the world finds value in.  Your ability to do this effectively will define how successful you become.

So there you have it.  Working on these areas, particularly with a strengths coach will definitely find success. You may find it difficult to build and excel in all these skills because your strengths aren't going to be aligned with each of them, so a basic level of competence would be required for all these skills.  This is also where the ability to collaborate is critical, so that you can contribute your strengths to enable a colleague to play around their weaknesses, and they will do the same for you.

Recruiters (including managers and leaders) - don't forget to assess these skills when you are interviewing candidates.  Your organization's long term growth depends on it.

Want to know more on how to develop these skills for you and your team / organization? Contact me at +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com

What the research says about cultural alignment in hiring

We've heard the phrase "checking the cultural fit of a candidate" when hiring a candidate.  This is where all interviewers including HR professionals make errors in hiring at least once in their careers.

This fascinating article covers this in detail.

From the article: Research suggests it’s a lot easier to recruit and select for cultural alignment rather than socializing employees to match the values. That’s why including cultural alignment measurements in the hiring process can produce significant benefits.

Read the full article here

Don’t let job titles dictate career pathways

An interesting read on #hiringstrategy - I tried a similar version of this approach at a startup when I was creating the hiring policy and #jobdescriptions . We were successful in closing positions which did not exist in the new industry we were a part of.

From the article - " Research into ‘job crafting’ also suggests that actively changing or ‘crafting’ an individual's role can increase their ‘work meaning and work identity’, increasing efficiency via increased motivation. "

This approach is extremely powerful and beneficial to the organization if we are able to align the tasks to the employee's #strengths.

Read the rest of the article here.

Employer Branding and the war for Talent.

A super read on the escalating need for #employerbranding in today's ever increasing #warfortalent

For me, #employerbrand is something that I spend time on during my #behaviouralinterviewing Workshop #selectiondiscussion

I cannot emphasize it's importance for short-term and long-term #hiring needs.

Click here to read the article.

Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call me on +919820155778 to know how to do this for your organization.

#hiringstrategy #recruitment #strengthsdecoder

Finding Diamonds among Gems - The Career Gap Candidate

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels 

Career Breaks  or Career Gaps are more common than ever before.  The reasons will differ for each candidate, but it is essential that we don't take the easy way out and reject them on paper just because we recruiters and HR folk have a ton of resumes to go through.  That's an injustice to the candidate and your organization since you could be throwing away a diamond along with other gems.

This is what I did when I was in the corporate world:

1. Reviewed and shortlisted resumes based on the skill-job match alone.
2. Did not reject any candidate who was returning from a career break or gap of any sort if there was a match between the skill-job match, and call them for an interview.
3. Kept 2 or 3 questions to understand the nature and reasons for the gap in career during the interview.
4. Conducted the interview as fairly and as objectively as possible.
5. Rejected the candidate if I found them unsuitable for any role-related reason other than having a career gap.

Just like cutting a diamond from ore takes care and time, so too does this. Then why invest this time?

My reasoning:

• Such candidates can join faster since they don't have a notice period to serve.
• They are more willing to negotiate on compensation because they want to get back to work (doesn't mean we shortchange them on the CTC because they will find out sooner or later and then become disengaged).

For those recruiters / managers that think of this as time being wasted: 

• Remember that interviewing candidates is a key part of your role.
• You are anyway going to interview candidates, so it might as well be someone whose skills match the job, irrespective if there is a gap in service or not.

If shortlisted, explain this reasoning to the next interviewer, especially the skills - job match.

As you can see, any recruiter can do these things - it requires a little courage to not take the easy way out. 

The Selection Discussion

Hiring is the one HR activity that is on every organizations' radar.  However, few organizations invest in training their managers in conducting interviews.  Fewer still have clearly defined and articulated their Employer Brand and Employee Value Proposition.

This workshop can help you focus only conducting Behavioural Event Interviews, or, we can co-create a recruitment strategy and solution over a period of 3-4 months in a specially customized intervention for you, followed by this workshop.

Interview order Does Matter

 Fascinating read on the idea that the #candidates place in the #interview lineup affects their #selection.

During my corporate stint, one manager pointed out the difficulty in remembering who was interviewed and suggested that we ask for a photograph that is attached to the resume to help them remember the candidate better.  It did help. 

Also it is hard to say that whoever gets selected would turn out to be the best or worst, due to the absence of functional crystal balls.

Read the article here

Revisualizing Hiring for the shifting economy

 #hiring people is always a challenge, especially niche talent in difficult markets.

I have worked in a startup which is in an industry that is new (didn't exist before), and had to do exactly what the post asks - #revisualize recruitment.

It's a scary place to be, and few available resources at the time to tap. This is something I cover in my #behaviouralinterviewing Workshop called the #selectiondiscussion

Happy to have other inputs on how to manage this #recruitment conundrum.

New Collar workers

A new term for me - 'New-Collar Workers' in this article today.

As a recruiter or business owner - have you been hiring these types of people? If yes, what's your experience? If not, would you start doing so to reduce your skill gaps?

Love to have your comments on the above questions.

#newcollarworkers #hiringstrategy #skillgaps #recruitment #strengthsdecoder #behaviouralinterviewing

5 AI powered Job Interview tools

 Interesting article on AI job interview tools for recruiters.

Read it here

Which have you used?

Which would you recommend?

7 Must-haves to create Effective Recruitment Ads

With organizations closing and/or laying of staff over the past few years, there are many more candidates looking for jobs than before.  This means that there are more applicants for every job, including an increasing percentage of those who are "trying their luck" in desperation.  There is a constant refrain from the organization side about how there is a dearth of quality manpower, and the huge amount of time spent in shortlisting candidates who are not suitable.  Most times, the issue with these problems of quality manpower and unsuitable candidates has to do with the details and clarity of recruitment advertisement.

We know that the purpose of a recruitment advertisement is to convey the critical information of a job vacancy, so that relevant candidates may apply.

However, I've noticed that many hiring teams of organizations skip a few key items or ignore them altogether.  This doesn't show a professional corporate image to the world. This creates more problems for the organization than the applicant.

For the applicant - Its a waste of time to realize that the job they applied for, has a couple of unmentioned items that were non negotiable to them.  It could be location of the job, compensation, responsibilities or whatever their situation is at the time.

For the organization - 

1. You end up annoying quality and average candidates with an incomplete recruitment advertisement when they find out important criteria missing, simply because they're unsure if they should apply or not.
2. You wasted your time conversing with candidates who wrongly applied, who likely wouldn't have applied if you were explicit in your recruitment advertisement.
3. You hurt your organization's employment brand when you put out unprofessional recruitment advertisements. This makes your future hiring more difficult, because you will become known as "they don't know clearly what they want in a candidate".
4. When you spend so much time scheduling and interviewing irrelevant job applications to finally select someone, there are chances that you may rush through the interview process and make a wrong hire while trying to meet a hiring deadline.  
5. Because of the recency effect, a mediocre candidate may look better than he/she actually is and would again lead to a wrong hire.

In case you were wondering what a candidate looks for in a recruitment ad, here are the results of a LinkedIn Poll that I set up last week:

The results are quite interesting, given that one person gets only one vote. Here's my thoughts about this poll results:

• The highest votes went to Job Responsibilities, which tells us that candidates are totally keen to know what is the kind of work they will be required to do / be responsible for.  As recruiters, clarity is of utmost importance here.
• Conversely, the lowest votes went to Years of Experience.  I find this interesting since I've experienced quite a few occasions where candidates are applying for roles with more responsibilities, without having requisite experience.  I've noticed some job ads which mention responsibilities that are not commensurate with years or experience or even don't mention the years of experience.  The thought behind this action from a hiring perspective is that the organization won't have to pay for the experience of a senior person and still get the job done with some manageable (they hope) errors.
• Designation and location were equally important - almost.  The designation in particular, can be very appealing and attractive to some candidates.

I deliberately left out 'Compensation' because it could skew the voting, and 'Educational Qualifications' because people tend to end up in careers that aren't always related to their studies.  Of course, that doesn't mean these items can be left out in the recruitment advertisement. These items actually provide strong clarity for candidates.

So, to improve the quality of applicants, here are some of the 'Must - have' ingredients of a recruitment advertisement in no particular order of importance:

• Location - a candidate does need to decide if he/she is willing to travel to your office daily. With remote work becoming more prevalent, this may not be required.  A work from home mention is necessary.  However the candidate will need to know where his head / regional / local office is situated.
• Industry - Every industry has it's nuances in the way they execute their tasks.  If you are open to hiring from any industry, then please ensure that you check this in the interview thoroughly and provide the selected candidate sufficient time to perform after being hired. This also helps you develop a diverse workforce.
• Designation - Many candidates equate their professional and personal self-image to a designation.  So clarity in this will ensure that relevant candidates apply.
• Nature of qualifications required - I've seen really articulate ads mention that they want graduates from specific B-schools only or a full-time degree.  It is annoying to be told after you applied, that, while a person holding any degree may apply, it should be full-time course only.
• Role and responsibilities - Yes everything cannot be articulated in the advertisement, cos of the thinking - "what if it has to be changed  before the candidate is selected and joins".  That is no reason to be vague about these things.  The main critical responsibilities that a company will evaluate the candidate on in their performance assessment and bonus payout should be mentioned clearly.  If there is a ranking preference of importance in the number of responsibilities, please mention that too. If the role requires an individual contributor, please specify that so that those candidates with visions of managing teams don't apply.  I have noticed that there are organizations who really spend time to articulate these things, and I am sure they get more relevant applicants.
• Years of experience - Too many times, the years of experience mentioned is less than what the responsibilities entail.  Similarly, if there is a need of more experience in a specific responsibility, please mention that as well. When job description expectations are unreasonably high, you set up the selected candidate for failure and waste company resources in hiring and training such a candidate. This ends up damaging the employment brand to such a level that only the very desperate apply and end up either giving poor or average performance or just leaving after a few months.
• Compensation - Please do provide a range.  This ensures that candidates above the compensation or looking for higher salary packages think twice before applying and wasting yours and everyone else's time.

Bottom line - If you can be specific in your recruitment advertisement, it improves the quality of your candidate applications and ultimately the quality of hired candidates.  It positively reinforces your brand image so that your future hiring is that much easier. Of course, employer brand is also dependent on how employees are treated in the organization after they are hired, but that's for another article.

Want to know more? Call me on +919820155778 or write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com

Sell Yourself Into your next Job - 17 Oct 2020

Register here:  https://www.townscript.com/e/Oct-20-sell-yourself-webinar

Effectively Interviewing technical candidates using a Sherlock Holmes technique

Here's a super article on how to interview technical candidates effectively.

I have used a variation of this technique, but this article has helped me add to my knowledge and skills in this area.

Read more here

Leading a remote team

Leading a remote team

Timely article to help those who manage #remoteteams

Here's why from a line in the article - "Managing remote employees is different from managing in-house teams, which means a manager who successfully leads in-house teams might struggle with managing remote workers"

#workfromhome #remoteleadership #remoteworkers #performancemanagement