Rejuvenate. Refresh. Renew. An HR Possibilities Event

Here’s where I’ll be next Saturday. You’re invited!

Rejuvenate. Refresh. Renew. An HR Possibilities Event

Sat, June 12, 9:23 am - 4 pm

Maritime Event Center at Bell Harbor

$100
Register at: http://www.hrpossibilities.org

 

If you are an HR professional, you know all too well what a brutal, high-stress ride the last couple years have been. No one can blame you if it has left you feeling depleted and burned out. This day will put passion, purpose and energy back into your career – and your life! 

 

There is no shortage of great programs that offer the technical knowledge and information you need to do your job well. THIS ISN’T ONE OF THEM. The focus is on YOU. You will reconnect with your passion and purpose, and leave feeling energized and inspired. 

 

During this interactive and creative day of inspiration, you will learn to:

• Breathe passion back into your career
• Make the hard changes with ease and grace
• Heal your heart so that you can lead from your heart
• Stay inspired in spite of circumstances
• Create your own definition of success
• Become an HR rock star

You’ll answer for yourself:

• What truly inspires me?
• What can I do to put passion and purpose back into my career?
• What is now possible that wasn’t possible before?

Facilitators:

• Ann-Marie Archer, Archer and Associates and Healing Garden
• Deborah Huyer, Business Coach and Talent Management Leader
• Dr. Melody Ivory, Melody Ivory, Inc.
• Curt Rosengren, The Passion Catalyst

Check out our HR Possibilities blog and subscribe today for ongoing updates!

 

Powerful Connections. Get it on your calendar!

NPowers’ annual event is a “must attend” affair.

Each year this event celebrates the creative use of technology at nonprofit organizations. The event showcases the impact that technology enables nonprofit organizations to have on community issues such as homelessness, environmental degradation, and poverty and youth violence.

Powerful Connections, our 5th annual event, will bring new focus on the groundbreaking work of our customers and community partners and how they make creative and effective use of technology in meeting their missions.

Powerful Connections

Friday, April 30th, 2010

7:30 – 9:00 a.m.

Meydenbauer Center, Bellevue

 

Registration and corporate sponsorship information can be found at www.npowerseattle.org.

PS – Ann-Marie is putting together tables now!  Contact her if you want to be included. aarcher@archer-associates.com or 425-869-6350

Ann-Marie Appointed to WBE Executive Board!

Women’s Business Exchange has announced their 15-member Executive Board for 2010.  Ann-Marie Archer has joined the Board and will head up the Membership Committee.  Her areas of responsibility include membership development, new-member orientation and enrichment as well as the organizations scholarship efforts.

WBE was founded in 1979 as a non-profit organization offering women business and personal growth through networking, professional education, leadership training, mentoring and exposure to community issues, business trends and vital business concerns.

Check out its website at www.wbex.org.

Recruiting Best Practices: Chapter 2

Why an ATS is a “must have”

Authored by Lisa Muller, recruiting operations manager, Archer & Associates

An ATS is a foundational and fundamental tool in your recruiting toolkit. The Applicant Tracking System takes your process and tracks and organizes it so you always know where you are with any given candidates, on any given day, for any given open job req!

Shopping the tools

Determining the best product for your organization and implementing it should be done early in company’s growth cycle as it captures valuable data and morphs into your pipeline as you grow. If you are already a mature organization, never fear, an ATS can very successfully be implemented!

How to determine the best ATS for you? You gotta go through all those darn demos. I know, it’s time consuming and a little tedious, but it’s important you have a feel for the user experience of the system, and make sure it aligns with your needs.

And speaking of needs, list out your must-haves and nice-to-have’s in a spreadsheet along with other critical criteria such as fees and training– something like this:

• Monthly user fee
• Installation Fee
• Any additional fees for training, adding customizations, data transfers
• Does it synch with Outlook?
• Is it customizable?
• Level of customer service?
• Does it have a CRM?
• Strengths/weaknesses
• You get the idea

The value of your ATS

Your pipeline is your recruiting goldmine! It helps you track candidates, develop relationships and have a go-to resource to start with when a new req opens. Plus it organizes your candidate data in an efficient, searchable way that makes it painless.

It also puts data and analytics at your fingertips: you can run recruiting metrics easily, analyze ROI for your sourcing efforts and track progress on any req, recruiter or candidate. It helps you catch trending around your interview process or identify trouble spots, which allows you to address situations early and find solutions before they become big problems.

Lastly, and very importantly, an ATS improves your public image!  By having your ducks in a row, candidates experience your recruiting function (and your organization) as a well-run machine.  Everyone wants to work for a company that has its act together!

A Good Read!

An older book with great ideas that is more important than ever.

“Not finance.  Not strategy.  Not technology.  It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

The opening lines of Peter Lencioni’s wonderful book, ‘5 Dysfunctions of a Team,’ are just as important today as they were when the book launched in 2002.  This book is an easy read, tells a great story and is a good reminder of the dysfunctions that will undermine any team:

            Absence of trust

            Fear of conflict

            Lack of commitment

            Avoidance of accountability

            Inattention to results

When Archer has gone onsite with a customer, I’ve seen firsthand what dysfunction can do. I have seen dysfunctional teams cause delays, undermine c-level plans and commitments, and damage morale; all costing the client company thousands of dollars.

Teams are the machines that make every company work.  A good company is a reflection of its good teams.

If you haven’t read the book in awhile, pick it up again.  I’m not going to pitch any bookstore or online book-buying tool.  Just be sure to buy it, new or used…and use it!

Recruiting Best Practices: Chapter I

The Road to Best-in-Class Recruiting

Be sure your process…from sourcing to onboarding…is sound.

Authored by Lisa Muller, recruiting operations manager, Archer & Associates

When Archer & Associates is retained to work as a consultant or operationally with the client onsite, often the environment is dysfunctional.  The client doesn’t know why recruiting is so painful and disruptive; why the results are continually unsuccessful.  They just know it’s hard…and doesn’t work.

Archer’s first task is to analyze the existing process.  Why is the process of recruiting part of a best-in-class program?  Because a good process propels recruiting into a streamlined, professional function within your organization – it just makes you look good! And looking good has its advantages both internally and externally and ultimately makes your company more appealing to top talent!

Internal benefits

In many organizations, employee referrals as a way to find great candidates are critical.  Employees often network in professional organizations and social groups and are “tuned in” to the sometimes hard-to-find talent that is out there on the street.  When the recruiting process is chaotic and frustrating, no one wants to participate.  Employee incentives, no matter how lucrative, won’t work if they think referrals will be lost or treated poorly.  Being a department that is clear, organized and low-maintenance is a joy to work with…and a joy to refer your professional contacts to.

External benefits

Your company’s reputation as a good employer that treats people well resonates throughout the business community.  And it starts with how you find and bring new employees onboard.  A sound process sends a consistent message to candidates.  A sound process without turmoil and confusion improves the candidate’s impressions and experience.  It instills confidence, it shows respect, it performs on a consistent and measurable basis.

Don’t underestimate how critical the recruiting process is.  An audit of your process is well worth the effort and can net you saved time, saved ulcers…and found talent!

Best–in-Class Recruiting: Introduction to a series

Whether the current economy has driven your company to either slow down hiring or stop altogether (or you haven’t missed a beat and you are growing and hiring like crazy), it’s never too late to make plans for and lay the groundwork for developing and implementing a “best in class” recruiting organization.

How do you get to “best in class?”  There are definable and measurable “best practices” that can, when employed (excuse the pun), result in effective and cost-effective recruiting and retention.  (In other words, finding and keeping the best people.)

 Your business may include 10 developers hunkered down in one room or hundreds of people telecommuting from around the World, but these best practices are scalable to any size company and adjustable to any industry.

When our clients engage us, Archer usually does an audit resulting in a gap analysis that identifies where each best practice point needs to be fixed, enhanced or happily left in place.

In blogs to come I’ll share each of these best practice areas.  From time-to-time one of my staff members may author the blog (I’ll give them the byline) because they are in the field living and working this process every day.

Stay tuned for Best Practice, Chapter I.

“Ask an Expert”…. (Ahem, that’s me)

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by one of my favorite people…Alicia Marie Fruin.  She is the owner and president of Profit Consulting, an organization that focuses on business coaching and training.   (I am a firm believer in the value of personal and professional coaches and she is one of the best.  I will undoubtedly devote a future blog on when you really need to hire a consultant and how to get the most from them).

Once a month, Alicia Marie offers an interview opportunity and webcasts it to her many listeners.

On this particular day, Alicia and I discussed how to build successful teams in a market flooded with resumes.

If you are hiring, or considering hiring, this discussion will be interesting to you.  If you are out there looking for your next opportunity this interview may give you a nugget of information on how to separate yourself in the “flood.”

Nevertheless, you’ll enjoy it and enjoy Alicia Marie’s questions.

The link here will take you to her web site to listen: : http://profitconsultingco.podbean.com/2009/07/24/ask-an-expert-ann-marie-archer/

Happy Listening!

Why a blog, why now, why me?

So many of my friends, colleagues and clients (or mixes thereof) have been urging me to step into the blogosphere. Enthusiastically they’ve encouraged me to “get into the 21st century” and get blogging. So many of my acquaintances have even jettisoned beyond blogging and are now tweeting! The temptation to join the communication whirlwind has been huge. So why now?

While I know I have a lot to say and that I’m a content expert in the field of consultative recruiting, it is only now that I’ve felt that the economy plus my personal and professional experience plus the state of business equals enough need for good information to take up your time. (Whew…it sounds like an algebra equation.)

So what will Ann-Marie’s blog be about and why should you check it out from time-to-time? My goal is to share with my blog readers, ideas, techniques….that they can use immediately (and over time) to improve how people are found, welcomed and developed.

The quality is up to me and my goal is that it has a positive effect on my readers. My promise is to be meaningful and thoughtful…and not just be the trivial meanderings of an idle mind.