Making Perfect. Teri Ann Lindeberg
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on these replies, I made a note to organize trainings on communication skills for the teams and management in both offices, and to look into the problem of “hoarding” recruitment projects between offices. I also recognized that our operations manual needed to be updated to address both of these concerns, with new policies and rules of working conduct.
Finally, I made a note to organize scheduled conference calls (either phone or Skype) between the management of the offices and between the Consultants and Directors’ groups in both offices.
Employees want:
• Improved communication with those they are not communicating well with;
• Fair play: a share of work if it is supposed to be shared;
• Shared information between offices and departments; and
• Focused work and less drama between colleagues.
“The level of my English”…
This was a good employee and if helping her to improve her English would make her happy (and would obviously benefit the company to some degree) then I thought we should look into that.
English is by far the most popular global business language and it is ubiquitous in our business in Russia. It is quite widely used by many of our clients, especially foreign companies, that require correspondence, both written and verbal, be conducted in English.
Employees want:
• To speak, read and write more proficiently in English, in order to better communicate with foreigners; both colleagues and clients, alike.
“The office space is average, things need fixing”…”Everything promised came true; no problems – only thing is that Staffwell never moved office – but I think this is a good thing”
The epic and long debate about the office: do we move from our fantastic location, albeit in a somewhat run-down historic building, or stay where we are?
We have been in the same office now for 9 years and have expanded in the building over time: we started with one half of a floor but then expanded to occupy almost two full floors. The building is old and dated and so are the management and staff operating it. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with it. We love the charm and nostalgia, but we also desire the new and modern.
Moving would cost a lot of money in terms of relocation and real estate agency fees, as well as renovation costs, rent and deposits. While I acknowledged their comments, seeing as we were in the midst of a major economic down-turn, I ultimately felt that moving was something we should look into only after the market had recovered and our business was stronger.
I recognize that office space does matter to people and if things need fixing then we need to try to fix them – and if we can make the office better than average then we should try.
Employees want:
• A great new, modern office in an ideal location; and
• Things that are broken in the office to be fixed.
“Cold calling”…”To cover projects in many spheres in the beginning – advise not to have generalist recruiters when they start”…”Start-up of the department as the two who left the company left a big mess”…”Do not like split situations in the company as every time it is a conflict situation and relationships are not good after – I had a bad situation with another Consultant and the tension is still there and feel I was not treated fairly and did not like the behavior of the other Consultant”…”Candidate behavior when there are counter-offers, because it is difficult to influence the process”…”At the beginning it was splits, they were very unfair”…”Assumptions – when you are sure the candidate will be the one but sometimes the reality is different”…”Moving from legal to FMCG [Fast Moving Consumer Goods] – as it was unexpected and done abruptly, I knew nothing about FMCG but got great training and love the team there – it is a much less complicated sector, it is much harder to interview lawyers”
I was really pleased to hear this feedback as perfecting our work and operations is extremely important.
There are many aspects to recruitment. Foremost, we are a sales organization: to clients we sell our recruitment services, and to candidates we sell the job opportunities our clients engage us to fill. Accordingly, we must be highly skilled at finding, screening and interviewing people suitable for the roles proffered by our clients. This requires that we keep high standards in report writing, simultaneously managing numerous multi-faceted projects, and continuously updating databases and CRM systems.
Our priority is to serve our clients and candidates with whom we work. Internally, it is crucial we serve each other, as recruitment involves a lot of project work and working together in pairs or teams is the norm.
To stay the best at what we do, we must always look for ways in which to improve our operations and how we work. These comments are very telling and they show specific opportunities for us to improve upon.
I made immediate notes to consider focusing our new recruiters in one area until they get good at it and learn the business, to look into the fairness of the splits and our systems, and to create a more thoughtful and considerate process when moving people from one department to another (i.e., get their “buy-in” well ahead of time).
Cold calling, candidate issues and difficult interviews are all part of the job for our Directors and Consultants. It is what it is and they are either good at it and enjoy it, or they do not. The best we can do in this situation is to offer more specialized trainings in these areas to make our team more comfortable when handling these aspects of the job.
Employees want:
• To start a job by focusing in one area;
• The company to check that everyone is actively updating the databases – regularly and accurately (so that all company information is securely stored);
• More moderation and fairness on fee splits between colleagues;
• Companies (in this case from recruitment companies) to never counter-offer their resigning employees (TL: wishful thinking, but highly unlikely); and
• More involvement in decision making and the process of moving from one departmental role to another.
“The only real problem has been my relationship with the former GM, I tried very hard to improve it but for whatever reason did not manage to do so – I am pleased, however, that I managed to get through what was, at times, the most difficult part of my career to date”…”Our former Commercial Director was crude in meetings”…
I was relieved to hear that these were the only two issues people had with regard to management, within this question, as I was aware of both of them. Our former GM, for some reason, did not like one of our top Directors. Even though both were expats and of the same nationality, our GM just did not like the Director. I suppose that they were just two different people and, sometimes, it really is as simple as that. I am so glad our Senior Director, who mentioned this, did not leave the company in spite of all the tension he endured. He stayed, was loyal and I really appreciate that.
Regarding the former (expat) Commercial Director, he was a somewhat experienced hire, whom we had to let go after 6 months due to poor performance –achieving only around 10% of tasked job responsibilities. His employment ended following a major argument with our GM, who then asked my permission to dismiss him – a request I immediately granted. Subsequently, we found out that he was trying to pitch one of our new clients (brought in by another Director on the team) a million dollar project where all invoices were to be directed into his personal bank account – all the while being employed by us. He was our second bad apple in the cart.
Fortunately, we were able to stop this action in the proposal stage and our client completely shut him down. We were awarded the business and the client (a global bank with extremely