LSA Global Insights Newsletter: May 2012

May 30, 2012

Five Key Steps to Defining & Attracting Top Talent

It is all about performance. 

We believe that this is a good thing.   
  
Over the past seven or eight years, we have seen a steady increase in organizations devoting more time and effort to defining and measuring employee performance.

As business practices and profits continue to come under more intense scrutiny, we believe that the focus on performance will only increase.

No organization can afford people who do not contribute and who cannot perform consistently at a high level.

For most growing and changing companies, talent performance starts with attracting and hiring the right people in the first place. Jim Collins calls this "getting the right people on the bus in the right seat." 

While we all know that bad hires are very expensive and preventable, we continue to find frequent disconnects between employee performance and the traits that recruiters and hiring managers look for in candidates. Far too often, recruiters and hiring managers base their interviews and selection on a generic job description that has little relation to the reality of the position or the culture. 

To attract and hire talent that will best execute your strategy and thrive in your specific environment, you must first define great performance. Once defined, you can identify the specific competencies, skills, and traits that candidates must have to succeed. Only then will you be set up to get the right people on the bus in the right seats.

If you and your company are counting on new people to achieve your goals, and if you are serious about avoiding the hiring mistakes that keep so many great strategies from succeeding, here are five steps to finding the best people with the talent you need: 

Read more to find out the five steps defining and attracting top talent... 

Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

On-Boarding: How to Accelerate New Hire Speed to Productivity

Finding and hiring the right talent is difficult enough. 


Once you acquire the right talent, leading companies put them in a position to succeed as fast as possible.

According to Aberdeen's latest research, best-in-class onboarders have a 53.5% better retention rate, create 57% higher performance, and report 20% greater hiring manager satisfaction.

That adds up to greater productivity and significant cost savings.

In a recent survey, 210 CEO's estimated the time for a typical mid-level manager to reach "breakeven" as 6.2 months. Using an average salary of $100,000, the difference between a 3-month ramp and a 6.2-month ramp is approximately $26,500 per employee. 

This does not account for differences in revenue, margin, utilization, or productivity. It is only the salary side of the equation. For a company hiring a minimum of 100 new employees per year, this creates a $2.6m window of opportunity for an improved new hire process. For companies closer to the 24-month mark, the opportunity is as large as $17.5m. 

In addition to the financial side of the equation, making first impressions count and getting new employees up to speed quickly can make or break a strategy or project.   

Despite the compelling impact the effective on-boarding has on customer retention (4X), customer satisfaction (2.8X), and revenue (2.6X), 36% of organizations surveyed lack a formal on-boarding process.  Where do you stand?


Learn more about key on-boarding best practices... 

Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned