Part 5: Nurturing a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Part 5
Nurturing a Culture of Continuous Improvement
By Chuck Baren, COO of HirexHire
HirexHire is Building a Great Company for Great People.
Parts 1-4 of this 6-Part blog series have been received very well. Go back and read Parts 1-4 here. In Part 5, we discuss how we nurture a culture of continuous improvement for our employees.
HIrexHire Team Outing @ Quartino Ristorante
At HirexHire, we know that great companies enjoy a culture of continuous improvement, and that’s what we’re building for our employees. Intentionally creating or changing a corporate culture takes people management skills and time. It’s a fragile objective that can easily reverse course if our managers don’t exhibit consistent routines and discipline when holding one-on-one meetings, providing coaching or feedback, and delegating learning opportunities.
One-on-One Meetings
At HirexHire, our leaders have regular one-on-one meetings with their direct reports and are sure to give proper attention to each employee’s personal and professional development. We follow a simple structure for these meetings.
We ask the employee how they’re doing and if anything is on their mind. Having established trust already, our employees know that we will respond productively if they need help with a problem. See Part 2 of this blog series for a reminder of how we establish trust.
We talk about the employee’s personal and professional development. This doesn’t have to be a formal conversation discussing progress towards goals. If specific goals aren’t a regular topic of conversation and the employee doesn’t come forward with anything specific, we get the conversation started by asking two simple questions. Employees who anticipate these questions during one-on-ones will pause to reflect on their recent work and learn lessons more quickly:
“What have you done since we spoke last that you are most proud of?”
“What have you done since we spoke last that you would do differently next time?”
Save business updates for the end of the meeting. We save announcements, reminders, etc. for the end to be sure we have enough time to discuss the most pressing topics for the employee. It is okay if we don’t have much time for business updates because as managers, we can always get the time we need to communicate to the team.
We have time blocked for one-on-one meetings, and we do our best to hold the time sacred. Some weeks, we may not have much to discuss - and that’s ok too. Our team feels comfortable knowing that they have consistent opportunities for open dialogue with their manager.
Coaching
Every employee has different professional goals and if we’re having our regular one-on-ones with our team, we know what those are and how they align with our broader company goals at HirexHire. In many cases, reaching these goals requires the employee to gain new skills or experiences outside of their day-to-day responsibilities.
Coaching an employee is easy when all that is required is making suggestions or sharing opinions on a topic for which our managers already have the expertise (e.g. recruiting). If we are asked or see a need for coaching on a more difficult topic, we try to follow the following method.
Discuss the development need and the related goals. Note that these goals can be of high importance to HirexHire and the work at hand, or it may be something unrelated to the role, and instead of personal interest to the employee. We support personal goals as long as they don’t interfere with our expectations for client service.
Brainstorm different methods for learning and developing. These could include observing others, doing online research, watching YouTube videos, formal training courses, etc. Follow-through is important for coaching to work, so we let the employee choose the learning methods they prefer to pursue.
Hold employees accountable by discussing progress during one-on-ones. We show ongoing support for our employees’ personal and professional development by remaining close to their progress and by clearing roadblocks that may slow down their learning.
Provide opportunities to continually improve these new skills. When the ultimate development goal is achieved, we incorporate the new skills into the regular work responsibilities of the employee. This is an obvious step if the development need was a required element of the employee’s role. If the interest in this development was more personal in nature, then incorporating the new skill demonstrates HirexHire’s commitment to the long-term well-being of our employees.
Coaching takes time when we follow this method - often many months. Sometimes coaching is not the solution. If an employee requires a timely behavioral change, then we deliver feedback not coaching. The two are very different.
Feedback
Why do we need to give feedback? To identify slight adjustments employees can make to improve their impact at work (duh).
Delivering direct feedback is surprisingly easy and very effective when done well. At HirexHire, it can literally take less than 5 seconds because we use the script “When you did X, Y happened.” followed with either “Good job. Keep up the good work.” or “So next time let’s do Z instead.” That’s it.
Positive feedback reinforces behaviors and outcomes we want to see more, and constructive feedback helps us learn and improve. We follow the guidelines below to ensure our feedback delivery is effective.
Feedback should be about the future, not the past. Whatever happened is over and cannot be undone. We deliver feedback so that next time something will remain great or be better than before. This is why we give feedback - for the greater good, not to reprimand or make someone feel uncomfortable. So we deliver feedback in that spirit and with that tone of voice, and our team knows what we expect moving forward.
Feedback must be accurate. If we’re not sure of the effect of an action, then our feedback must be honest about that. Sharing your concern “When you were late to the meeting, I sensed the group felt like their time was wasted and perhaps even disrespected, so please do what you can to be on time in the future” is different than stating a debatable fact “When you were late to the meeting, the others felt disrespected, so…” If the feedback recipient doesn’t want to look foolish by challenging an opinion, then “Okay. Thank you for the feedback.” is the proper response.
Feedback must be timely. Our goal in providing feedback is to reinforce positive behavior and take advantage of a teachable moment for our team. The more time that passes after the fact, the less effective the feedback will be. Waiting and then finding the other party to deliver feedback - especially constructive feedback - leaves a very different impression than expected. A simple “When you did this/Next time do that” can feel much more like a formal reprimand than just a helpful encounter - something we avoid by being timely.
At HirexHire, we believe that giving positive feedback to reinforce good work is just as important as constructive feedback intended to improve something. So we are sure to deliver both. It is obvious that being recognized with positive feedback makes employees feel good. And that good feeling will likely result in repeating the good work.
Giving learning opportunities
In all companies, front-line employees are at risk of growing bored if they’re simply repeating the same work over and over and over again. At HirexHire, we view learning opportunities as a productive way to mitigate that risk for the individuals involved while benefiting the entire company.
Anything can be a learning opportunity for the right person. Even unsophisticated or monotonous tasks can provide someone with perspectives of the business they hadn’t experienced personally before. When a person delegates work to someone who can learn from it, time is created for other important work or perhaps a new learning opportunity.
People given a learning opportunity will embrace it. However, we do not simply throw work over the fence to an unsuspecting team member. At HirexHire, you should never hear “Hey…I don’t have time to do the research on these sales leads and enter the data into this spreadsheet, so I’d like you to do it” without any context or instruction. If framed this way, our teammates may groan and feel like the busy work is just rolling downhill. They probably will not view it as an opportunity to expand their perspective by looking behind the curtain into the sales aspect of our company.
To avoid this backfiring when providing learning opportunities, we explain the following.
Why the work is important
Why the recipient is especially qualified to do the work
What successful completion of the work looks like
When the work must be completed
For example, we could say:
“Hey, I have some work that I think would be perfect for you.
We hit a roadblock in our sales outreach and cannot proceed until we find some missing information. I know you are quick with doing research on the web and are good with large data sets. Would you be willing to take ownership of research and data entry into this sales lead spreadsheet?
I think it’ll be interesting for you to see how we think about sales prospects in terms of company attributes that are important to us, and it may give you some new insights into how your clients are organized. We’d just need you to find the missing data in columns J-N and double-check to be sure the people still work there. It’s okay if you cannot find all the answers, but if there are more than two remaining blanks, we won’t know how to approach them.
We’re starting our outreach next week, so it would be great if you could have this done by noon on Monday.”
That’s better! Our teammates will know they’re trusted to work on something very important and feel good that their skills are understood and appreciated. And knowing that there’s a learning opportunity tied to this work will keep them more engaged. This thoughtful approach to learning creates good experiences for individuals and is important to the culture we're building.
At HirexHire, we understand that these important management routines help us build a great place to work. We conduct weekly one-on-one meetings, provide coaching and feedback, and give learning opportunities to our team to benefit each employee, our organization, and our clients. We are creating a culture of continuous improvement, which is an important aspect of the great company we’re building for our great employees - hire by hire.
Thanks for reading Part 5! In the 6th and final installment of his blog series, Chuck will discuss how HirexHire is building our team - hire by hire. Follow @hirexhire to receive each part as it is published.
How HirexHire is building a great place for great people - Hire by Hire:
Follow @hirexhire on LinkedIn to receive each part as it is published.
About HirexHire
HirexHire (pronounced: hire by hire) is a Chicago-based recruiting and talent consultancy that integrates with companies short-term to provide long-term talent solutions.
We take a seat in our client’s everyday operations to understand their people, goals, gaps, and challenges. We then develop and implement the processes and technologies to execute a sustainable and scalable talent plan.
We partner with companies expecting or experiencing high growth, leading them to hire at scale or fill a critical role rapidly. We develop and execute creative strategies to carry out all aspects of the recruiting process: crafting job descriptions, building candidate pipelines, vetting candidates, conducting interviews, negotiating offers, and leading new hires to their first day on our client’s team.
HirexHire was founded in 2018 with an initial investment by founder and CEO Mike Durec. The firm found its first customers through Mike’s network in the Chicagoland startup community. Consistent success has led to a sterling reputation and steady growth. The company has more than doubled its number of customers, revenue, and employee base each year and is showing no signs of slowing down.
About Mike Durec
Founder and CEO
As Founder and CEO of HirexHire, Mike partners with operating executives and investors to develop and implement processes and technologies to successfully attract and retain talent.
In his past work as a corporate recruiting leader in technology, Mike crafted and managed strategies to hire thousands of professionals across many functional areas worldwide. He has led hiring initiatives in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, France, Australia, and India. Mike brings practical leadership experience and a legacy of success to every engagement.
HirexHire now operates with Mike’s proven approach, deploying empathy with candidates and hiring managers and advocating for the best interest of both parties. Mike emphasizes the two-way relationship between the employee and employer, resulting in long-term people placement and greater work-life satisfaction.
About Chuck Baren
Chief Operating Officer
Chuck has more than 20 years of experience working in professional services for SAAS providers, most of which was with Fieldglass, where he helped it grow from 20 employees and no revenue in 2000 through its $1 billion acquisition by SAP in 2014. He regularly received high marks for the level of employee engagement of his teams for which he prioritized people management and the need to attract and retain top talent by building a great place for them to work. By the time he left SAP Fieldglass, the professional services team he led had grown to approximately 200 employees.
Chuck wrote about his experience leading his growing team at Fieldglass through challenging periods of rapid growth in Money Matters, Top Tips for Success, the Business Leaders Edition, volume 3. His chapter entitled “People Management is Key to Survival in a High Growth Environment” helped propel the book to Amazon Best Seller status in its first days of release.