By: Smith Granade

As the holiday season kicks into high gear, companies are slimming down their party plans. The uncertain economic times call for stricter party budgets. Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are among the firms vowing not to host parties this year. While cost-cutting is the primary reason for most of the downsizing this season, public scrutiny is also keeping corporate parties to a minimum.

According to a nationwide Challenger, Gray & Christmas poll of 100 HR executives, only 62 % of companies are throwing parties, down from 77 % last year and 90 % in 2007. Moreover, almost half of the 100 companies polled by Battalia Winston International will hold luncheons and one-third will celebrate on site this year. Sixty percent have eliminated employee gift-giving.

Here are some options to keep holiday party costs to a minimum this year

1. Instead of hiring caterers, host a pot-luck dinner, where employees bring their own food to share, or have a cocktail party.

2. Lessen expenses by forgoing the open bar in exchange for a cash bar.

3. Consider cutting out altogether or at least paring back on employee gift-giving.

4. If you normally have a band, consider hiring a DJ instead.

5. If you book your event at a private venue, book on a lower-demand day such as a Thursday or a Sunday.

6. To further shave costs, restrict the guest list to employees and/or clients only.

The following are links to articles on conserving holiday party costs:

www.evliving.com/business/groove-heads-entertainmentllc/article-4.html

www.sandiego.org/article/Visitors/1211

holidayentertaining.suite101.com/article.cfm/inexpensive_corporate_holiday_parties

By: Shawna Wright

Employee morale is a critical factor in maintaining a dynamic work environment. Negativity can be one of the most damaging factors to an organization because it is oppressive, robbing your employees and company of drive, determination and productivity. As a HR representative, you are closely in touch with the employees of your company. They come to you with complaints, concerns and questions. It is your responsibility to sort through these and uncover the cause of the dark cloud hanging over the office.

According to a study conducted by Towers Perrin, the five most common causes of employee negativity are:

1. An excessive workload

2. Questioning managements’ leadership

3. Anxiety about their future within the company

4. Lack of challenging or interesting projects

5. Insufficient recognition

As the sports metaphor goes, “The best defense is a good offense.” Recognizing where employee negativity starts will help you head it off before it begins to adversely affect your business.

By: Gillian Seely

Joe Sharron, Dave Kimmelman, Jeff Taylor, Meg Toland, Michael Clarkson

While all agreed that social media is indeed the new frontier for recruiting, the panelists’ social media perspectives varied in some areas. Joe Sharron, for example, spotlighted Hubspot’s progressive policy of letting employees take the reigns of social media with little oversight and blog at will.  This type of policy would not work so well at Hollister, however, where Meg Toland strives to keep all outbound messaging in line with the company’s corporate message.  Takeaway? Social media should be tailored to the requirements of propriety for a particular organization’s persona and function. There is no cookie-cutter social media mold that every company should use.

A recurring matter raised by the audience was that of keeping personal and professional spaces separate online. The panelists concurred that any space once considered “private” is quickly diminishing.  They advised people to be very aware that whatever they post o

nline can and probably will be read by unintended audiences, even outside of the “9-5” day…which, by the way, is diminishing too thanks to social media and technology.

Another issue raised was how companies and agencies can deal with negative press or reviews in the online space, where word-of-mouth (perhaps “word-of-hands” is more appropriate?) spreads rapidly. Given that the quantity of information online is so vast, and to respond to each negative comment with an apologetic, proactive letter would be nearly impossible, the

new mindset seems to be “take the good with the bad”.  Recruiters can use negative feedback posted online to enhance their services and improve the recruiting experience for clients.  Posting a pro-active, sympathetic, blanket-apology in forums where negative comments appear is one example of a crisis-PR strategy that could go a long way, and is more effective than individual responses. The bottom line for recruiters in the online space, as Jeff Taylor put it, is “if you can’t do it 1,000 times over, don’t do it at all!”

So, how do you “do” social media effectively? If you can’t do something 1,000 times over, don’t do it at all. And let’s face it; no one has time to send individual Facebook messages to 1,000 candidates in a day. That means recruiters really need an efficient way to manage their Tweets, such as HootSuite, a tool recommended by Meg Toland. They also need to determine which tools and applications offer them the best value for their time.  While Twitter is a great place for agencies to post snippets of job postings for large numbers of job-seeker followers, it isn’t necessarily right for an in-house corporate HR department.

Panelist and lawyer Michael Clarkson, who might have been expected to play devil’s advocate, agreed that social media is more than just a trend for recruiters.  He spoke to the value of sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and provided fascinating insight into the legal problems caused by using social media for recruitment. While the benefits of using social networking sites to recruit employees and enhance diversity initiatives are obvious, he emphasized that the line between proactive hiring and discrimination can easily be blurred. This is particularly true when recruiters contact candidates via sites that allow users to post photographs and personal data that would not be found in a traditional resume. He advised all companies to have a clear electronic information policy that includes guidelines for social networking as well as blogging.

There was an undeniable consensus in the room: social media is the new frontier for recruiting. In the last several years, people have watched Facebook and Twitter move from personal forums meant purely for socializing, to applications that are often required tools in the workplace. Those who choose not to embrace it just might find themselves “unfriended”, LinkedOut, and incapable of finding and hiring the best candidates for their organization.

By: Shawna Wright

As the first decade of the new millennium comes to a close, another wave of Baby Boomers are set to retire and a flurry of Generation Y job seekers—those of us born after 1980—are next in line to enter the job force. As a member of Gen Y, I would like to offer some insight into our needs and priorities in the workplace.

Work/Life Balance

Let’s get it out of the way – yes, we value of social lives. According to a Business Week survey of 60,000 Gen Y workers, a work-life balance is our top priority. Often, our desire to keep an equilibrium between work and play strikes our elders as laziness, but this is not always the case. We grew up watching our parents put in 40, 50, 60 hours a week at a job that left little time for anything else. While we respect our parents and admire their dedication, we also learned that this is not how we want to live our adult lives. We are looking for job where we can grow our skill-set without sacrificing every other aspect of our life. It is no secret that we value our social lives, but it is not because we devalue our professional life. We believe that the best way to live is to keep a balance between the two. It’s important to note that mobile communication is something we all grew up with, making it hard for us to see the value of putting in traditional office hours. Most of us are beyond capable and extremely willing to stay connected with the office, even when we aren’t there.

Skills Path

When Baby Boomers entered the workplace, for the most part, they stood before a clearly delineated corporate ladder where hard work lead to a logical procession of promotions. Predetermined opportunities existed as benchmarks to success within a company. The changing times (economically, technologically, sociologically) mean we Gen Yers don’t have the luxury of a set corporate ladder. We don’t expect to spend our entire professional career with one company, so we are looking for places that will help us grow along the way. We do want to be leaders of our industries, but we value the things we learn along the way more than we value reaching the top.

Manager as Yoda

Typically, Baby Boomers expect a clear demarcation between managers and employees. As we Gen Yers enter the workplace, we are expecting a different kind of relationship with our bosses. We are looking for a manager who can also be a mentor. We are well aware we don’t know everything, but we are looking to learn as quickly as we can. We want someone we respect and admire, someone who can guide us through the early stages of our career.

By: Shawna Wright

Historically, there has been a relatively clear distinction between the Creative and the Technology spaces. Creative teams have traditionally been charged with creating concepts, writing copy and designing, while Tech teams focused on integrating back-end coding. The right brain handed off to the left brain, and visions came alive.

Today, however, as technology becomes ever more complex and grows more vital to the success of integrated marketing and advertising campaigns, the line between Creative and Technology has become noticeably blurred, breeding the demand for employees with mastery of both areas.

The convergence of Creative and Technology isn’t new. Throughout the past 10 years, the Internet has become the prevailing marketing and advertising tool, meaning creative teams have had lots of catching up to do. Copywriters now work alongside SEO specialists, filling Web page and blog copy with key words and phrases to make the sites search-friendly. Similarly, coding is no longer strictly a web developer’s area.

Through his experience, Jesse Morano, Senior User Experience Designer, has found that traditional micro-niches no longer work.

“When everyone understands at least some of the skill sets adjacent to their own primary strengths, communication is easier, the work moves more quickly, and the quality goes up without a corresponding increase in cost,” Explains Morano. “The best creative and technology professionals understand this, and actively learn from their colleagues in other aspects of the project.”

“But there is a limit that companies need to understand,” he continues. “You simply will not find a brilliant visual designer who is equally brilliant at Objective-C programming or vice-versa, for example. The trick is to figure out the exact ratio of skills you need and find a person whose skill set matches that ratio.”

Today, with everything from marketing to entertainment going interactive and increasingly moving into the mobile space, the demand has risen for hybrid professionals who are creative, strategy-driven, and technologically savvy. This defines the user-experience designer.

Sometimes referred to as the user-interface designer, this employee is responsible for overseeing both the technical and the creative elements that make the user’s experience as simple, efficient, and enjoyable as possible. This person is responsible for understanding the human factor of a Web site—the ways in which visual design, information architecture and new technologies affect how people respond to a Web page, as well as how the user moves through the site. The user-experience designer is ultimately responsible for marrying what the Web can do with what the user wants and how they expect it to be presented, blending the roles of IA, UI, SEO, copywriter, front end developer, and visual designer as best meets the nuances of the project and the needs of the client.

According to Kim Wachter, Senior Creative and Marketing Recruiter for Hollister, Inc., a Boston Staffing Agency, “The worlds of Creative and Technology are most definitely blending, particularly in the mobile application space. Our clients are looking for candidates that keep up with the emerging trends; professionals who can lead their company through these transitions.”

By: Smith Granade

The legal implications of using social media channels in the workplace are still largely unclear. Many publicly traded companies are guided by SEC regulations, which are largely ambiguous when it comes to social media usage. Blogs and twitter handles can sometimes cross the lines of SEC corporate communications regulations. This has caused many companies, including tech-savvy ones, to use caution. Fear of violating SEC disclosure rules has led many companies to shun the use of such popular venues as blogs and tweets. Those that do use such venues are increasingly including traditional disclaimers used in other communications in their social media endeavors.

Legal implications are particularly murky when it comes to employees’ use of social media tools. It is prudent that every company devise a policy for social media. Such a policy might include how an employee represents the company outside the work environment and how an employee can put the company’s best foot forward concerning corporate values.

For HR and recruitment professionals, social media tools provide a legal way to check job seekers’ backgrounds. Though legal, such usage of social media can still cause problems. For this reason it is also a good idea to devise a formal policy for the usage of social media to check candidate’s backgrounds to ensure every candidate is being fairly evaluated.

Michael Clarkson, Partner at Morgan Brown & Joy stresses the importance of addressing these challenges without ignoring the reality of today’s workplace. “Of course companies have to be aware of and sensitive to SEC issues and other legal concerns, including finding out an employee’s or prospective employee’s disability or other protected status through accessing social networking sites,” he explains. “Many companies are now addressing these concerns with well-written and proactive polices rather than by attempting—often unsuccessfully—to prevent the use of social networking in the workplace altogether.”

For more information, visit the following links:

http://houchinlaw.com/?p=261

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124078135070257099.html

http://blog.stealthmode.com/2009/07/legal-ramifications-of-social-media-in-enterprise-2-0/

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/05/legal-consequences-of-social-media.html

By: Shawna Wright

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is an internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert who has spent decades studying cultures, observing consumer behavior and advising companies in their marketing efforts. His book, The Culture Code, reveals his groundbreaking insights on how people act and interact with businesses and each other. Dr. Rapaille is the chairman of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide and is the personal advisor of ten high-ranking CEOs. Fifty Fortune 100 companies keep him on retainer.

Rapaille’s “Culture Code” is the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing via the culture in which we were raised. Each culture has a different interpretation for the same word. All these codes create a reference system that people unconsciously use. “The Culture Code” offers an understanding of why people really do things. To be “on Code” is to tap into the unconscious meaning behind the word. Being “off Code” may logically make sense, but it runs contrary to the primal understanding.

Rapaille claims that the American code for money is “proof”. He states that money isn’t a goal in and of itself for most Americans. “We rely on it to show us that we are good, that we have true value in the world…we can prove what we’ve accomplished only by making as much money as possible.” We collectively view money as a scorecard of sorts, and many find it difficult to feel successful if they believe they are underpaid.

It would be “off Code,” then, to just preach profitability to employees. The bottom line should be more than dollar amounts or sales percentage. Money is proof of the quality of our work and our quality as people. It is not the goal. Instead, a company’s management must inspire employees to be the best they can possibly be and to make the company as strong as it can be. Done correctly, this will lead to profitability.

Rapaille states that money alone is the worst reward for an American employee as it doesn’t last and is never sufficient. It is, however, a critical component of the reward system. He goes on to say that the most “on-Code” approach is to use money as a positioning system that shows the employee where they are on their career path. He recommends offering a visual representation of the income curve they are on with every promotion. That growth curve is visible proof of their increasing worth. Rapaille also says that a tangible award of some sort (a plaque, new office accessory or even a new office) gives the employee “a tactical experience of his enhanced sense of who he is…These tangible symbols last much longer than money, though they admittedly mean very little without it.”

By: Shawna Wright

Mobile technology has changed the way people live, play and work. Phones are not just an option for communication; they are now a necessity for remaining connected to the outside world. The cell phone is generally the one thing people never leave home without. There are a reported 4 billion phone users worldwide, with a estimated 6 billion users by 2013. Contrarily, there are only 1 billion PC owners. More than 3 billion people routinely engage in text messaging via their mobile phone, easily making it the most popular mass media data application in the world.

So what does this mean for Boston Recruiters?

Mobile recruitment allows companies to connect with candidates in a much more personal manner. Professionals today, especially the rapidly emerging Gen Y workforce, are constantly on-the-go, meaning less waiting at their desk for a phone call or email from a potential employer. Increasing numbers of job seekers are turning to their mobile devices as a primary tool in their job search. Smart phones—iPhone, BlackBerry, the Google phone and the Palm Pre, for example—can give their users a competitive edge by allowing them to stay informed and quickly react to new job opportunities.

Mobile recruitment methods, such as texting (the universal mobile tool, available on over 98% of cell phones) and job search applications designed for mobile devices, give Boston Recruiters the chance to connect with both active and passive job seekers who search for jobs directly from their mobile devices. Incorporating innovative and cutting-edge mobile strategies into recruitment programs ensure that companies are able to connect with job seekers anywhere, anytime.

By: Shawna Wright

Keeping employees motivated can be a daunting and frustrating task. One lackluster employee can bring down the entire office’s energy. According to a Gallup poll study, 60-80% of workers are not engaged at work. Even A-players fall short from time to time and without varying methods of positive motivation they feel little or no loyalty and passion on the job. Having a talented team behind you isn’t enough if they lose their focus. HR professionals need to find ways to keep staff members engaged or risk facing a fully staffed yet under-productive company.

Methods of Motivation

There are two basic types of motivation used to incite employee involvement and dedication. Intrinsic motivation is when an employee wants to do something. Extrinsic motivation is when somebody else is trying to convince or makes the employee do something.

Why extrinsic motivation won’t work-

1. It’s not sustainable

Most of the time extrinsic motivation is based on a reward/punishment system. Growing research indicates that if a reward (money, awards, etc) is considered the only reason to engage in an activity, then the job itself is simply a means to an end—the prize for completion. As soon as employers remove the reward, the motivation to work disappears.

2. The law of diminishing returns

If the reward/punishment levels stay the same, motivation tends to drop off. To get the same drive for the next project, employers would have to offer a greater incentive to their employees.

3. It hurts intrinsic motivation

Punishing or rewarding your employees for doing something removes their own desire to do the work. It sets up a pattern where you must punish/reward them every project in order to see results.

So what does work?

In their book, Freedom and Accountability at Work, Peter Block and Peter Koestenbaum state, “It is right and human for managers to care about the motivation and morale of their people, it is just that they are not the cause of it.”

Rather than being the sole source of motivation, the HR professional must help their employees find their own intrinsic motivation.

1. Challenge

People are often best motivated when they are working towards goals that require an optimal level of difficulty to achieve. The idea is to make success probable, but not guaranteed. Your employees should have to push themselves if they want to finish the job.

2. Control

People have a basic tendency to want to control what happens to them. Employees should understand the cause-and-effect relationship their work is having with the progress of the company. It’s imperative that they believe their work will have an effect.

3. Recognition

Perhaps one of the strongest motivators, recognition highlights an employee’s individual achievement within the company. The pride attached to successfully accomplishing and being recognized for something is a powerful motivator and encourages an employee to repeat, if not increase, future results.

By: Shawna Wright

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is an internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert who has spent decades studying cultures, observing consumer behavior and advising companies in their marketing efforts. His book, The Culture Code, reveals his groundbreaking insights on how people act and interact with businesses and each other. Dr. Rapaille is the chairman of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide and is the personal advisor of ten high-ranking CEOs. Fifty Fortune 100 companies keep him on retainer.

Rapaille’s “Culture Code” is the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing via the culture in which we were raised. Each culture has a different interpretation for the same word. All these codes create a reference system that people unconciously use. “The Culture Code” offers an understanding of why people really do things. To be “on Code” is to tap into the unconscious meaning behind the word. Being “off Code” may logically make sense, but it runs contrary to the primal understanding.

According to Rapaille, the American code for work is “who you are”. Americans tie their sense of self to their jobs. When we are unemployed the logical concern is wondering how the bills are going to get paid. On a deeper level, when we are “doing” nothing, that means we are nobodies. If our jobs are meaningless, then “who we are” is meaningless as well. Contrarily, when we believe our jobs have value and we are doing something worthwhile, our identity is positively enhanced. This is the most fundamental reason that it is important for employers to keep their employees content and motivated.

Rapaille uses The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company as an example of an organization that understands the value of positively identifying employees. The company refers to its employees as “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Ritz-Carlton understands that if it wants to create an enjoyable atmosphere for its guests, it has to start with its own employees. Rapaille mentions that if a cleaning person were to encounter a guest with a problem, Ritz-Carlton gives the cleaning person the power to offer a free meal or free night to improve the guest’s experience. This power gives the cleaning person a “strong sense of motivation” and instills in them the belief that they are part of the corporate mission.

So what does this mean from an employer’s perspective?

By understanding that employees relate their jobs to their own self worth, employers should continually strive to keep their staff inspired and engaged. Regular staff meetings are “on Code,” they connect with the “who you are” idea.  Involving employees in the direction of the company gives them a stronger sense of identity, the feeling that they are critical components of the company’s success.

We put a lot of emphasis on progression. No one wants to feel that their journey is over and they will remain in a stagnant career for the rest of their lives. According to Rapaille’s code, we want to keep working (sometimes even after retiring) because we need to keep working in order to feel like we still exist. Helping your employees understand their career paths would also be “on Code.” When an employee believes that they are “going somewhere” in the company, their sense of self-importance is heightened.

Rapaille claims that looking at a team of employees, as a “Homogenous group that rises and falls together” is a mistake. Offering incentives to the team is “off Code” because it fails to recognize the individual. He doesn’t deny the importance of teamwork, but insists that the team should serve as a support system that allows individuals to become champions.