Sabbaticals for Staff helps Productivity & Retention

For those of you who read this blog regularly and know me personally, I value the happiness of my staff as much as I am passionate about wowing customers.  The fantastic team at Expect Talent are what make this business, and I am very proud of our 100% retention within the  recruitment division. Our very first hire Margaret is about to celebrate her 4th anniversary with Expect Talent.  Shortly followed by Julia, who last year was promoted to the role of Operations Manager and is a key member of the management team.  

A number of weeks ago Julia came to me to let me know her plans for 2012 were to go travelling, this was nothing new as she usually takes a 3-4 week trip annually.  But when I heard that these plans were for a 4-6 month period I had a bit of a shock...

My goal is to ensure that I help every single member of the team achieve their personal and business goals. So I knew I needed to see how I could make this happen.  The answer was to give Julia a sabbatical.  She had been worried about how I might react to her plans, given that we are experiencing major growth in the business and she plays a major role in the delivery of our results.  

The way I look at it is this, if I had said "No", she would have been very unhappy and much less productive and may have decided to leave the business anyway to go travelling.  By saying "Yes", she is much happier already and I know she will work really hard between now and when she leaves to ensure that the business will run without her.  I can only imagine the level of productivity, commitment and happiness she will feel after taking an extended break.  So I have started to look at the other benefits that this sabbatical will bring to the business:

1.  Opportunities & Personal Development

The first is that we can now give an opportunity to Margaret, who during the time Julia is away will take on a covering role as Operations Manager.  Margaret will spend the next few months training and up-skilling to take on this position in Julia's absence.

2.  Streamlined Processes

Our systems, processes and reporting will be streamlined and improved before the sabbatical to ensure that the business can continue to run effectively, with Margaret overseeing operations.   

3.  Improved Staff Happiness 

The rest of the team here at Expect Talent now know that I am willing and able to give sabbaticals to employees, and I have now decided to add this as a benefit to long-serving employees of 4 years or more.  

4.   Less chance of Burn-out and Stress 

After 4 solid years of hard work and contribution, some stress and worries can creep in, especially in a position of responsibility and leadership.  The last thing I want is a team who are unhappy, stressed out and at burn-out.  A sabbatical would do anyone good! 

On the flipside what could be the challenges, especially for a Small Business?

1.  Disruption of Workflow

Of course having a key member of staff out of the business for an extended period is going to disrupt the normal workflow.  There are a few points to consider - I would recommend that you get at least 3 months notice of any proposed sabbatical.  Also make sure that you have the right structure, reporting, process and systems in place to make a sabbatical a reality.

2.  Risk of No Return

What if an employee decides not to return? Of course this is a risk, but if they are happy in their job, you have looked after their personal goals by offering the sabbatical in the first place and have kept their job open for them on return you will minimize this risk.  

3.  Loss of Revenue

Depending on the role the person is doing, the chances are that a whole piece of expertise, skills and knowledge will be missing for the duration of the sabbatical, this often is related to the revenue generated in the business.  Putting a solid plan in place for handover, training and up-skilling of the person that is going to cover the role for the period of the sabbatical will minimise this potential lost revenue.

Having spent a great deal of time thinking about this, researching and understanding what it means for me, the business and the team, I am very comfortable with the idea of sabbaticals becoming an integral part of my business.  Work/Life balance is critical for every staff member and plays an important part in every business.  You can see a list here of some very well-known companies who in 2011 are offering sabbaticals on YourSabbatical.com.  What is your view on sabbaticals and would you take the plunge in the interest of your staff?

Having a Brilliant Team - Hiring Strategies

When I asked my team for ideas on a topic for this week's blog, they suggested I write about our fantastic team!!  Brilliant, what a great idea.  So I started to think about what makes them so brilliant at what they do, and how could the way that we develop our own in-house staff help others who might be reading this. 

1.  Hiring from outside of your Industry

Very often clients ask us to find them candidates with a number of years experience in their industry. However, this is not always the best route to finding the best talent.  All of my recruitment team have previously NEVER worked in recruitment.  Why? As you will know by now, the way we look at the whole industry and work with customers is so different from all other agencies that it would take far too much time to untrain bad habits, and the fact that we do not incentivise our recruitment team with commission does not suit or appeal to people who have already worked in the industry. 

I always look to hire people with a passion for excellence, a high level of customer service and strong account management skills.  Attention to detail and strong multi-tasking and organisational skills are critical.  Attitude, Attitude, Attitude.  Do you need to have industry experience to become an expert recruiter?  With the right training, environment and support of course not.  The same applies to many industries, companies are often missing out on great talent by only sticking to people with their own industry background.  So next time you go to hire, think outside the box.

2.  Win Happy

I heard the theme for 2011 of great Cork PR company this week, it's "Win Happy!", its not just about the revenue its about the happiness and fun factor of the team too.  The happiness factor and the motivation levels of any team are closely linked to productivity.  We have a staff happiness survey each quarter, and we measure our teams happiness factor.  This for me is what makes our team so brilliant, we have fun regardless of how busy we are, its great to be around happy and motivated people who love what they do.

3.  Commitment & Dedication

Over the 5 years we have built up a great team of Talent Managers and Administrators, their commitment to us as a business and their dedication to our candidates and clients is second to none. Without the team we would not be anywhere near as successful and for that I am extremely grateful.  The "above and beyond" mentality of every one in the team, means that we can deliver great results and be very flexible to clients demands.  This attitude is so important to any company and contributes hugely to the business. 

4.  Development Opportunities

A lack of opportunity for progression is often the reason people leave a company, so the development of my team is critical, giving them opportunities to learn, to upskill and to develop on a personal and professional level is vital to retaining the great talent that we have.  I want to help them all achieve their goals in life, and if the business can make that happen then all the better. 

5.  Celebrating Success, Reward & Recognition

Each member of our team has a "Success Diary", they record their successes no matter how big or small and the first item in our team meeting agenda is each person sharing one success from the previous week.  By focusing on the positive, we attract more great successes, and this keeps everyones mindset in a good place.  We recognise and reward in ways other than commission, surprise vouchers, team nights out, our famous "Friday Club" - team lunch on the house every week, and social time together outside of work.  Celebration of Success and feeling part of something special is what helps to make a brilliant team.

So this is my opportunity to recognise and thank all of my amazing team members - Julia, Margaret, Chris, Jackie, Pablo, Mairead, Caitriona, Lucy, Una, thank you for everything that you do, this business would be nowhere without your hard work, commitment, dedication and great talents. 

How do you develop your team and would you ever consider hiring people with no experience in your industry?

"Delivering Happiness" thanks to Smarter Egg

"Delivering Happiness" is one of the best business books I have ever read, for a number of reasons.  It now has us even more focused on delivering happiness to clients and candidates, as well as focusing on the happiness of our own team.  Tony Hsieh who wrote this book is the CEO of Zappos (http://www.zappos.com/) and describes their incredible story, so thanks to Tony for his genius.  I would never have been exposed to this book were it not for Aodan Enright who runs an fantastic business in Cork called Smarter Egg (http://www.smarteregg.com/). 

I have been a Smarter Egg for 2 years exactly to the day, so what better day to focus my blog on this aspect of Expect Talent.  I meet monthly with a fantastic group of 10 people from all walks of life and business to explore ideas and generate discussion around the latest business books.  Thanks to Smarter Egg, this experience has completely transformed the way we think about our approach to the recruitment industry.

In "Delivering Happiness", Tony Hsieh outlines the 10 core values of Zappos:

1.  Deliver WOW through service         
2.  Embrace and Drive Change
3.  Create Fun and a little Weirdness     
4.  Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded
5.  Pursue Growth and Learning             
6.  Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
7.  Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8.  Do More with Less                          
9.  Be Passionate and Determined
10.Be Humble 

What a great list, but the thing about Zappos is that every single employee commits 100% to these values, and its not just "a meaningless plaque in the lobby" to quote Hsieh.  If you are intrigued by any of these then you should definitely read the book!  The stories are fascinating and now you can even go on tours of the Zappos headquarters.  Some of the great ideas that I implemented from Zappos include:- 

1.  A library of the best business books around, now in the office (complete with beanbag seats!) available to the whole team - everyone reads or listens to a minimum of 1 book per month, upskilling the team and encouraging learning is so important to happiness at work, and the books give us all creative idaeas.

2.  A Culture book, the Expect Talent team recently defined our own core values and wrote about what the culture of our business means to them. I recently heard a great quote "Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast!".  Zappos now publish theirs annually.

3.  We now have a Staff Happiness factor, and ask the team every month to rate how happy they are with different aspects of their job, and we ask them to come up with ideas on how to improve their experience and happiness working for Expect Talent. 

4.  We now hire people based on our own list of core values:  Passionate about WOWing Clients and Candidates, Quality-Focused in Everything we Do, Always Reliable.

I love the hiring process that all Zappos employees go through, everyone has to be a match to their core values regardless of skills and experience.  They even offer to pay every new starter $2000 to quit after their first 2 weeks!! 

The Zappos story, is one of Profits, Passion and Purpose.  I continue to learn all the time through being a Smarter Egg, and I would like to congratulate Aodan on a fantastic two years, I feel very priveleged to have been involved in the first ever Smarter Egg "Tribe" which helped Expect Talent to "Break from the Pack", with "Creative Habit", my "MOJO" firmly back and strong knowledge of "Where Good Ideas Come From", I am confident that I can contribute a huge amount of my success to being a Smarter Egg.