Hiring: The Manager’s Most Important Decision

Of all the situations that confront a manager, the most important decision to be acted on involves recruitment. The addition of an employee to your workforce is a long-term commitment. Similar to many other circumstances in life, it often is much easier to get into the relationship than it is to undo the arrangement at a later juncture. For this reason, appropriate time, resources and thoughtful consideration need to be dedicated to the recruitment process, in order to optimize your investment.Let’s suppose that there are only two types of managers; those who are insecure and those who are confident. How might these different managers approach a hiring situation and what legacy impact would that have on their organizations?The recruitment process begins by defining the requirements of the position and the development of a comprehensive Job Description. Complementing the Job Description, a profile detailing the attributes of the ideal candidate also should be crafted. If there are particular characteristics that warrant emphasis, for instance punctuality with the young cohort known as Generation Y, these should be highlighted. Finally, formulating a series of behavioural-based interview questions will encapsulate the requirements of both the position and the profile.A slate of candidates can be identified based on a review of the resumes that were received. If high quality candidates are not evident from the resumes and interviews, it is imperative that the manager resists the temptation to compromise the position.Far too often, however, managers may try to truncate the hiring process. There are a variety of reasons that might compel the manager to do this. For instance, the manager may be under significant pressure to fill the vacancy, as quickly as possible. Or, the manager may fear losing the salary allocation. Or, service levels will not be fulfilled. Or, it really isn’t that important and it’s not a perfect world, anyway.But compromising the recruitment process is not an acceptable resolution. Instead, the manager should re-initiate the process, until the right candidate is surfaced. In some instances, broader and different advertising approaches might need to be considered. This will become evermore critical as the competition for labour intensifies due to the changing demographics and the shrinking labour force.The Insecure ManagerInsecure managers have nagging doubts regarding their competencies. Although the insecure manager might be proficient at certain tasks, there resides an implicit acknowledgement that there are deficiencies with many more. The insecure manager lives in fear that the deficiencies will be exposed and that they will be declared a fraud.An insecure manager, naturally, will feel threatened by strong, competent employees who may challenge the status quo or be overly enthusiastic about inventing innovative ways to improve business functions. Such a manager will be inclined, perhaps unconsciously, to recruit weaker employees who will not be seen as a threat to them.Over time, the insecure manager assembles an operating unit that is populated by sub-optimum performers who collectively are not capable of resolving business challenges. In these circumstances, even competent employees will give up when confronted by this impenetrable inertia and debilitating ennui.Now apply this predisposition and the resulting behaviour to the organizational level. If the organization is comprised of insecure, weak managers, then it follows that they will recruit a workforce that mirrors their profile. This commits the organization to a relentless downward spiral. It, quite literally, will be an unimpeded race to the bottom.The Confident ManagerConfident managers, conversely, have assessed and recognize their personal strengths and weaknesses. They also will have identified their blind-spots. Confident managers recruit employees who will offset the manager’s weaknesses and cover their blind-spots. They are not threatened by employees who have ideas and vitality.Confident managers welcome the synergy that blossoms from divergent thinking and healthy conflict. They value competency and collaborative problem solving approaches to business challenges. They assemble an operating unit that is energetic, trusting and vibrant. They recruit action-oriented employees, not excuse-makers.These managers also have a keen eye to the future. Their recruitment strategy extends beyond merely today’s needs. Having spent time considering emergent trends, the confident manager is deliberately recruiting for tomorrow’s environment. Finally, the confident manager is purposely recruiting and grooming their possible successor.Applied to the organizational level, a cluster of confident, strong managers collectively will have orchestrated an outstanding roster of competent, high potential employees. This is a high-performance organization that creates a competitive advantage, now and in the future.It is insecurity or confidence that guides the manager’s hiring process and predilections. The results are self-evident, for both the operating unit and the organization’s legacy.

What’s Your Working Journey in 2011?

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and found fascinating the current TV series ‘Britain at Work’ hosted by Kirsty Young.It has raised a huge amount of questions prompting many conversations with my Mum looking back over the years studying people’s attitude towards work over different generations.One question raised this week with my Mum was why I couldn’t remember very much the 80′s miner’s strikes and the terrible times families suffered in the hands of industries being wiped out causing extreme unemployment with over 3 million out of the work. During this period when I was growing up as a teenager I remember well the scenario of Dad intensely watching the evening news when you dare not say a word or else you would be glared at and told to be quiet (which I wonder now how often this typical picture plays out in family homes). It occurred to me that because my parents were self employed and ran their own business what was happening around me, didn’t directly affect me as none of our family members worked down the mines either.My parents were lucky to be in a position where financial independence was possible, certainly didn’t earn pots of money but they didn’t have to rely on an employer to provide the work and wage packet. Yes I do remember things being tough with not a lot of money floating around but we certainly didn’t go without.This made me realise and ask the question about attitude to life and work and what impression parents and family make on you as you grow up. Definitely having a family that ran their own business made a mark on me, helped create my outlook and influences on life – having to stand on your own two feet and not solely rely on other people. My parents were very much about being an individual and not being a ‘sheep’, following the crowd. They knew life was going to get even tougher and having a certain amount of independence and self reliability was very important.Over the last few months I’ve had an increased amount of people contact me interested in finding out how to become a home working virtual assistant – which has been fantastic. As always I paint a realistic picture of what it’s like to start up your own new venture, all the excitement and buzz, opportunities of being your own boss and setting up your own virtual assistance business. What I always point out is the two sides of being self employed and what the real crux of running a business involves. You can be the greatest provider of your service in the world but if you can’t sell it then you’re going to have a hard time. When you say to someone that business falls into the 80/20 rule – 80% is running the business getting clients on board and 20% is doing the actual work, for some the idea of going self employed suddenly loses its appeal. Going self employed doesn’t automatically suite everyone!Going back to the TV series ‘Britain at Work’ – a large percentage of people are brought up with the ideals of getting a job with the strong reliance of large companies and authorities to provide the work and the wage packet every month. A large percentage of people will be looking for something different, wanting to be their own boss, choosing not to be reliant on a company to provide the work but want to be financially independent and generate their own work.But what is guaranteed these days – very little. So are we at a tipping point in society where people are being forced into rethinking their working life journey?After watching the tragic aftermath of the peaceful demonstrations in Hyde Park this weekend followed by the violent disruption at Trafalgar Square with the small percentage of people intent on causing violent chaos – are we walking into a worrying period of repeated demonstrations with the rise of unemployment on the up.Will we start to see a huge rise in more people taking up the self employment route – is it a survival strategy out of this mess?Having the confidence to go it alone when you’ve always been in work where the responsibility of finding the clients/customers/sales has been the manager/owner/executive’s role is like tipping a working role scenario on its head. All of a sudden it’s your responsibility to find the clients that want the services/products that you’re selling – you’re forced into the driving seat of being the sales person – it can be an overwhelming place to be. All of a sudden you’ve got to wear the hats of about 10 different roles usually held by different people made up in a company. Having the ability, energy, enthusiasm, drive and sometimes the courage to try something new doesn’t automatically exist in everyone.So who is going to provide the jobs for all these people who don’t fancy self employment?Is it up to you, individually to create your own work, take a look at what skills you already have and think hard about what you could provide as a service or a product to sell?What is the survival strategy – does anyone have the answer that’s likely to fit all the differing scenarios to look after all those millions of people out of work.Whose responsibility is it?

Statistics Programming – Easing the Pain

Different sets of software are being developed everyday just to ease man with some of his technical works such as in the field of business. These programs are specially designed to make high speed calculations and analysis of the data and come up with a soft copy of information output that can be used instantaneously after the software processes it. Statistics is one of the most complicated clerical works of anyone who is studying or working in the field of economics, politics and even social matters. Statistics is deemed to be of importance because it gives a type of descriptive conclusion or interpretation that can be very precise depending upon the quality of data that has been gathered and the competence that is given to organize, interpret and represent that data. But even with the level of competence that a person has with regards to his statistical skills, there is still a probability that a miscalculation might be made and alter the holistic outcome of the statistics.

However, because of the rapid advancements of technology and the evolution of the functions that can be performed by the humble computer software developers has come up with a certain software program that can make ease any statistician of all their statistical tasks. The development of a program that is able to perform the task of organizing and interpreting statistical data was q revolutionary breakthrough when it comes to statistical analysis help. Statistics programming is defined as the systematic calculation of all the numerical data that has been downloaded into the system wherein it is organized basing upon the categories. These categories are classified upon the nature of the data that has been downloaded. After the process of organizing the data, it will be then interpreted numerically. This function of statistical programming helps to lessen the burden of work and also to maximize the output of a statistician.

Statistical program is composed of sets of languages. There are a total of 17 categories in a statistical program and these are the following;
• Analytica, ADMB
• Gretl, GAUSS
• Mathematica
• OxMetrics
• Quantum (Programming Language)
• Programming Language, SPSS, Symbolic Data Analysis, Sysquake, SAS (software and language), Speakeasy(Computation), SHAZAM (Software)
• World Programming System
• XLispStat

Each of these categories of Statistics Programs has their own unique sets of functions. Each one of it is capable of performing specific functions about statistics. The MATRIX LAB is one of the statistics programs that are widely used today. It is a program that is provided by a certain company that is said to be fully capable of solving ad coming up with solutions with regards to any mathematical or numerical problems that are fed into it. The MATLAB assignment helps not only statistics but also other aspects that majorly require the use of mathematical equations and solving. Because of these software programs, statisticians are given more time to pay attention to other details of the data and leave the organization and the interpretation of it to the statistics software.