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Drill baby, drill? More like jobs baby, jobs.

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Drill baby drill. We keep talking about it, and that’s fine. But what are we doing about it in relation to jobs?

Energy is a sustainable industry in the US, because energy is as consumable as food. However, we import so much more energy then we do food. So I suggest we approach the energy industry with a different focus — rather than cost-based or environmental, let’s start with job sustainability.

How about a multi generational jobs plan that adds and sustains about 3MM jobs? That is goal #1. Coal, natural gas, oil, wind, water, algae, solar — the plan should be designed for expenditure based on job growth and sustainability. I know there are environmental factors to consider, so consider them, but ask this question: How many jobs does is create and sustain over 50 years?

I love wind energy, but it peaks early on jobs as wind turbines are constructed and installed (you will notice they turn themselves). So build them, but only count the sustainable jobs. Conversely, tar sands and coal require significant people power, continuously. We need to consider those energy sectors as people investment, even if the environmental concerns exist.

Natural gas is an abundant resource but it requires more monitoring, engineering and safety. Anything cheap, abundant and easy should be questioned. To make it safe, it may take 20 times the manpower we use now. Sure, that makes it 20 times more expensive, but like I said, I am concerned about jobs. If we have an opportunity to produce safe energy locally and drastically increase jobs, regardless of cost, it needs to be evaluated.

So let’s make an energy plan related to jobs. I know it will be expensive. Gas is already $4.00 a gallon and these increasing energy costs are scary, but we can afford to increase our energy costs provided we increase our earnings per family — and jobs do that.

The amount of energy we import is staggering. The amount we produce domestically without proper safety is staggering. Both require people power, and strong domestic production policy can add jobs in the hundreds of thousands, potentially millions. This is an INCREASE strategy for jobs creation. Let’s stop all the talk about energy and start taking some action regarding jobs.

Told you I would be here…but I am not ready

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Its not unusual – getting meetings and getting interviews to happen on time, and also for people to be IN the meeting. Our schedules change everyday, and its easy to reschedule this or that. Of course when the this or that is the scheduled intake session, interview, debrief or whatever – it hurts recruiting. Its even worse when meetings happen but meeting members are not prepared.

So how do you avoid this problem? Some say technology. Technology is a wonderful thing, and can save time. But once its on the calendar, its easy to delete (not to many people using paper based schedules anymore). I miss the days when using a paper calendar was in vogue. You would use ink, and once its in the calendar – its in the calendar.

Changing commitments is a behavior that is either positively or negatively reinforced. But recruiters don’t always have the influence to change behavior – but they can anticipate for sure. Remember – calendaring is not just about getting the meeting – its really about getting work done. Its about being productive. When you meet, you should have prepped, and so should they. Having a manager arrive at a pre-scheduled meeting and tell you they have not done their assignment, prepared, reviewed the job, or they have to be educated on the fly is YOUR fault, as much as its theirs.

Try these tips to help get meetings to be kept and more productive:

  1. Know who really manages the calendar. Some executives really allow their administrators to dictate their calendars, others do it part of the time. If its part of the time – that spells trouble.
  2. Ask for Work, Not a Meeting. Ask for committed planning time, execution, and post time – not “when are you available?” Ask “when can you work on this?” You are never asking for just a few minutes or to be squeezed in – you are asking for their committed work. That actually means asking for 1) time they have to work on their own and 2) time to then review that work with you
  3. Target Highly Productive Times. Try understanding the work habits of your managers. There are likely times that are not good for meetings because they won’t be as engaged. Are you really going to schedule an intake call right before or after the one on one they have with their manager? Find out what they have those days, and respect their calendar such it makes them productive for you and themselves. It will make for a much more engaging meeting.

Linking Interviews with Performance

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Take out one of your team member’s last performance review or their development plan. Now go ahead and pull out the screening questions and interview questions that you used to hire one of your team members.

Is there ANY linkage whatsoever? Well their should be. Interesting how we tend to measure performance after we hire someone but we tend not to directly ask or measure performance capability during the interview process.

When you hire, you are not only measuring the ability for the candidate to perform against the tasks, you are measuring the gaps they have so you can build a strong development plan for them so they can be a strong performer for your team. That builds a stronger ROI on the hire, and better retention of the employee.

Try Problem Solving as a competence. You know your team should be able to solve problems for business leaders, and create strong solutions for their needs. As such, see if you can list the following:

  • What interview question (and follow up deep dives) would you ask to determine if the potential employee has mastered problem solving?
  • What development tools or techniques would you use to increase the competence of your team member regarding problem solving?
  • How do you measure their ability to problem solve, and will you grade it objectively come performance review?
Of course this linkage needs to be done across dozens of competencies – but its straight forward – and important to the development of strong players and future leaders.

Wasting Leaders as a Resource

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The most under utilized resource that recruiters and HR have access to are respected leaders and managers in their business. Period.

We spend so much time trying to figure out what recruiters should be doing – boring. Spend time on what managers and leaders should be doing during the recruiting process. And I don’t mean get leaders to simply interview or review resumes. Try these ideas on for size:

  • Transfer employee referrals to leaders. Switch to leaders marked as high potential, employees in rotational programs, team leaders with great results, or employees who won awards for performance. Name somebody better in your organization who is better to vet someone that was recommended by a fellow employee. Your employee referrals may go down in number, but up in quality.
  • Give your candidate an exercise during the interview, and have a leader sit in and watch them think and perform. Its amazing how people learn about someone when you watch them work. Results are easy to assess, but if you want to know the thought process, you have to see the work getting done.
  • Have a leader who is NOT the hiring manager run the interview debrief session. Recruiting should advocate and prompt here when needed, but get your leaders to take the reins – they will absorb more accountability and hold the hiring manager accountable too. You probably have to prep them before, but sit on your hands during the session – let your leaders challenge each other.

 

200 Words on Execution

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Roy Halladay

Pictures of execution, the game tickets, and marking great execution.

I was asked recently how do you stay motivated to do great work when there is so much work to do. I suggest identifying a way to picture “greatness”, and strive for it each day. Find something tangible, easy, and personal for YOU to relate to.

How do I do it? Like a 12 year old kid, I have a hero on my desk. Roy Halladay, the ace pitcher of the Philadelphia Phillies. In 2010, Roy pitched a perfect game on May 29th, and a no hitter on October 26th.

There are 27 outs in a baseball game. A “perfect game” is when the pitcher executes an out for every single batter. 27 for 27. In 135 years, this has been done 20 times. A “no hitter” is when the pitcher executed so no batter could get a hit. There have only been 272 no hitters. He did BOTH in ONE season. Over 578,000 major league baseball games have been played and 0.05% resulted in a no hitter or perfect game.

People know great execution when they see it – and so will you. What vision will motivate you to get that performance out of your work?