WEBINAR: How smart managers are employee agents

Yep, it's time for me to pitch the next installment in the Fistful of Talent free webinar series, this one titled Get My Agent On The Phone- How Smart Managers Position Themselves as Agents Via Performance Goals, which is set for next Tuesday, May 21st from 1:00PM  - 2:00PM EDT, and is sponsored by longtime friends of FOT and of mine, Halogen Software. 

You can register for the free webinar here.

But why should you?

Because chances are at your organization either performance management, goal setting and tracking, or the capability of your front-line managers to really manage employee performance and inspire and encourage development need some help.

Because your company is probably like 98% of companies out there that are not getting enough - enough improvement, enough accountability, enough understanding of who the best performers really are - out of your performance management process.

Because despite the hype and buzz about 'scrapping performance reviews' you know that will never happen anytime soon where you work, and that you as a talent pro have to find ways to make the system work for you, and not try and invent something entirely new.

And last, because you secretly know if your organization doesn't continue to improve and innovate and stay one step ahead, there are 4 dudes who just dropped out of Stanford that have already figured out a way to do what your firm does, only cheaper, faster, and using only an iPhone app. 

So what will you learn from  Get My Agent On The Phone- How Smart Managers Position Themselves as Agents Via Performance Goals?

Simple.

Making sure the goals you set represent the Five Most Important Things (5MIT) for the employee in question. What are the most important things your employee has to focus on this year? If you can only talk to them about five things, what would those things be and why? Smart managers skip discussing the busy work and get to what's going to change the game - for the company and the employee. We'll give you the 411 on how to do that.

Offering up ways each of the Five Most Important Things might be measured in the months that follow. You want measurements - we get it. The key in offering up how you’re going to measure the 5MIT in question is not to limit yourself. The more you box yourself in, the less innovation you get. We'll show you how to set the expectation your direct reports are going to be measured without actually taking performance off the table. PS - They'll love you for this if you deliver it in the right way.

Having Thoughts on what “Good” and “Great” performance looks like in each area. That’s right – we’re going through a goal setting process not because HR told us we had to, but because it can set us up to be a great performance coach for the rest of the year. Nothing sets you up as a coach more than owning the difference between “good” and “great”. We'll tell you how to reserve the “great” tag for employees who really innovate, drive change or add true value in the job they’re in.

Including a section that details “What’s In It for Me?” for each area of focus. Being an agent is about talking about how chasing great performance in the area in question could be great for the employee’s career. We'll show you how to frame this as the agent/coach. It's the most important thing you can do.

Putting it all in an easy to follow, informal format. If you go beyond one page, you’re making goal setting too complex. List everything we’ve described to this point in one page, and make the headers conversational in nature, and you win. We've got some format to share with you.

Look you and your managers want to be viewed as career agents for your employees rather than a run of the mill corporate bureaucrat. The robots are coming for those jobs. Trust me on that.

Join FOT for "Get My Agent on the Phone"  on Tuesday, May 21st from 1:00PM  - 2:00PM EDT and we'll show how the secret sauce to goal setting and follow-up conversations can dramatically change the positioning of what you do in performance management.

As always, the free FOT webinar comes guaranteed - 60% of the time it works every time.

WEBINAR: The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting

You know what niche industry is really suffering right now?

Ok, that was a dumb question, there are hundreds of possible answers, (luxury electric cars, shoe shine stands, sites trying to peddle surplus Jeremy Lin 'Knicks' gear), but the one I was going for was gossip magazines.

You know the ones I mean - National Enquirer, The Star, The Weekly World News. The rags that line every supermarket checkout counter in America.

Why are these publications feeling the squeeze lately? It's not for a lack of juicy news - heck the Kardashians alone take care of providing all the content they need. It's because while people are stuck waiting in the checkout line, when they used to scan and once in a while make an impulse buy of one of these magazines, now they are heads down on their iPhones.

Texting, Tweeting, Facebooking - whatever. The attention they used to pay to the starlet of the moment on the magazine rack is now diverted to their mobile device.

Face it - our attachment to our devices is changing everything - from gossip mags to reading news to looking for a job - and yes I just made that leap. Candidates are looking for jobs, (maybe your jobs), on their mobile devices instead of reading about the latest world's largest baby. And guess what? You probably are not ready for that.

That is why your friends over at Fistful of Talent have you covered with the latest in the FOT Webinar series - The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, Wednesday April 24 at 1:00PM ET.

What will FOT's Kris Dunn and Jason Pankow cover?

Jason and Kris will lay down FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, brought to you by the mobile sages at iMomentous by hitting you with the following:

A survey of the mobile recruiting landscape and the factors driving the need for HR and recruiting professionals to develop their mobile recruiting strategy.

Mobile site vs. Native App? FOT tackles the great debate, presenting scenarios of how each fit into your mobile recruiting strategy.

The five keys to enhancing your mobile recruiting strategy by capitalizing on features like quick apply, SMS, social media and QR codes

The ultimate checklist for selecting your mobile recruiting vendor, including the top questions you need to ask when vetting potential vendors

How to go beyond the optimized screen to attract top talent to your organization by incorporating video content and thought leadership into via your mobile recruiting strategy.

So what are you wating for, register here for the April installment of the FREE FOT webinar and start laying down the foundation for your mobile recruiting strategy.

As always, the FOT Webinar comes guaranteed - 60% of the time it works every time.

WEBINAR: Seven strategies to save your employee referral program

Batman is without a doubt the greatest of all superheroes. A tragic origin story. A relentless and lifelong pursuit of elusive justice. And just the right amount of darkness, doubt, pain, and mystery to sustain the narrative for decades. You, me, all of us - we need a Batman. 

And you know what else you need - Mr. or Ms. Talent Pro? You need to fill that Sr. Software Developer role like yesterday - or the next version of Super-fantastic-amazing product might night make it out the door as promised. You could use someone like Batman helping you out, that is for sure.

The really cool thing about superheroes is that they are superheroes for a reason – they have someone who is their equal to compete against them. These competitors are the super-villains, and in the movies they’re doing bad things – but in real life these “villains” are only the bad guys and girls because they work for the competition.

So, how do you get your competitors talent to come over to your side and put on your company’s cape? A great employee referral program is the key.

Your pals over at Fistful of Talent are back at it with the March installment of their monthly webinar series. This month, with the help from the heroes at Zao, HR SuperFriends Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett will be laying down seven strategies that are guaranteed to put your employee referral program on another planet.  

Join us Wednesday March 27 at 1pm ET and we’ll hit you with the following:

• Seven surefire ways to engage your best employees and increase referrals (while ensuring your employees don’t refer SuperDuds!)
• How to develop an internal communication strategy for your employee referral program
• The keys to sustaining your program long-term
•  How and why trends like gamification can lead to better employee referral results
• he top three reasons 99% of employee referral programs fail and how you can make sure your employee referral program is delivering the goods all year long

Don’t let your employee referral program fall to the Legion of Doom. Register now for The SuperFriends: 7 Strategies to Get Your Superhero Employees to refer Their Arch Nemesis! 

As always, the FOT webinar comes with a guarantee - 60% of the time it works all of the time!

WEBINAR: It's Time for Your Close-Up

Have you heard about the latest trend in cosmetic surgery?

Of course you have, you are on top of things, you even know that this past weekend the mighty South Carolina Gamecocks football team defeated arch-rival Clemson for the 4th consecutive year, (sorry, I just had to slip in a sports reference).

Back to cosmetic surgery.  With the growing accessibility and importance of video communication - Skype, Google Hangouts, Video Interviewing, FaceTime, etc., a new genre of surgery has emerged - the so-called 'FaceTime Facelift'.

The idea behind this clever marketing stunt by a couple of enterprising cosmetic surgeons - that increased use of video technologies will drive a subset of users to seek, ahem, enhancements, in their appearance and some kind of improvement in their confidence when using these new technologies.

Sounds crazy, right?

But the 'FaceTime Facelift', despite how ludicrous it sounds, does reveal an underlying truth - video technology for essential communication, collaboration, and simply 'getting things done' continues to emerge as one of the most dominant technology trends of the last few years. And this trend is bigger than Skyping your Aunt Betty for her birthday, it continues to drive important changes and present opportunities inside of organizations as well.

That is why your friends at Fistful of Talent, in collaboration with the folks at Blue Jeans Network, have decided to focus on video and it's role in driving results inside the organization for the latest installment of the FOT Webcast titled "Video Killed the Radio Star: How Collaboration Tools and the BYOD Movement Are Reshaping the Way HR & Recruiting Pros Get S#*T Done”, to be presented this Thursday, November 29th at 1:00PM ET.

Here are all the deets:

Join FOT for our November webinar (sponsored by the fine folks at Blue Jeans Network), “Video Killed the Radio Star: How Collaboration Tools and the BYOD Movement Are Reshaping the Way HR & Recruiting Pros Get S#*T Done”,  on Thursday, November 29th at 1:00PM ET, and we’ll hit you with the following:

1. A detailed dive into why video collaboration is quickly killing the use of traditional audio conferencing tools and the positive impact the shift is having in modern day organizations.

2. Five ways you can leverage video collaboration tools in your organization today. FOT is determined to make you a believer, so we’re offering up five scenarios in which video collaboration would be the most effective route to execute challenges in your daily role and ultimately drive business results.

3. A comprehensive roadmap for driving user adoption of video collaboration across your organization. You’ve got the goods now it’s time to put them to use. FOT will break down the three barriers to user adoption and offer up a resistance free roadmap to implementing video collaboration across any business.

4. A universal script guaranteed to eliminate pregnant pauses, crickets and speaking out of turn.

5. BYOD and the Mobile Era - the final definition.  We’ll bring in Jeremy Malandar from Blue Jeans Network to define BYOD and the Mobile Era, and break down why they are leading drivers in the shift to video collaboration.  

Bonus: We’ll wrap this webinar by stocking your toolbox full of free, cheap and accessible video tools and hardware to help you get started with video collaboration in your organization today.

Toss your outdated audio conferencing equipment like a pair of acid wash jeans and start collaborating like it’s 2012 – register now for “Video Killed the Radio Star”.

This webinar comes FOT guarantee – 60% of the time, it works every time.

Register today! 

WEBINAR: That's Your Pitch? Raise Your Social Recruiting Game

Since you are a savvy HR or Recruiting pro in 2012 that means one thing -  you are all over the web. 

SEO optimized careers site? Check

Engaging content on your 'Careers' tab on Facebook? On it. (don't worry eventually you'll crack 100 'likes')

Witty yet informative Twitter feed that helps get the word out about your company and openings? That's so 2009, but you are on top of it.

Job postings being syndicated, (I am not totally sure what that even means, but it sounds complex and important), all over the whole wide world wide web. You bet.

Awesome coverage, presence, and reach. So why are you still having trouble attracting the talent you need, connecting with the right audience, and generating excitement and buzz about your brand?

This just in - the internet is a big, loud, noisy, confusing, confounding, and if nothing else, distracting place.

Look over here! No, look over here! Free stuff here! Funny cat videos here!

And, I don't know this for sure but I heard some people at an HR conference talking about this recently, there may be parts of the web that feature, shall we say, adult content.

If that is true, and again I only recently heard about this, well good luck getting anyone to notice let alone pay more than 5 seconds of attention to your lame-o career site, or your exceedingly boring JobsAtAcme twitter feed.

So what can you do to rise above the pack, crawl free from the swamp, swim against the current? (insert your favorite 'distinguish yourself' analogy here)

That's what your friends over at Fistful of Talent are here for with the next installment of the often imitated, never duplicated FOT Webinar, set for Wednesday, August 22nd at 1:00PM ET, and titled, That’s Your Pitch?  How to Raise Your Social Recruiting Game By Acting Less Like ACME and More Like Apple.

On the webinar the FOT crew will cover:

1. The Top 5 Traits of Successful Marketers and Advertisers that recruiters should use to raise their promotional game.  We’ll deliver this in true Mac vs. PC style.  What do great marketers do to generate interest?  What do average marketers do?  We’ll break it down and contrast it to the recruiting world.
2. How to Prevent Your Job Postings from Being Lame.  FOT will walk you through alternate ways to present employment opportunities that break through the noise/clutter of the web.  You need more than a title and bullet points – and we’ll show you what to include with live examples ripped from the companies we love.
3. How Cool Companies are Experimenting with Elements Beyond Text (including video, audio and more) to deliver some pop to traditional recruiting campaigns.
4. We’ll play a game we like to call, “That’s Your Freaking Pitch?” – where we peel back the cover and take a hard look at traditional messaging that flows through your recruiting function today after the job posting goes out – including ATS messaging, live call recruiter scripts and more.  We’ll highlight the average vs. the outstanding and let you decide what to do next.
5. A Plan to Customize Your Social Distribution Message Across the Big 3 (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook). You know the same message doesn’t work across all social channels, but you’re not sure how to customize your approach to each.  Never fear – FOT will be bringing in Michael Center (from iCIMS) to outline key messaging structure to be used for each social channel to develop deeper connections and foster candidate engagement.

Message received. Stop thinking like a recruiter and start thinking like your marketing friends down the hall. 

So register today for the August 22nd webinar here.

And remember, as always the FOT Webinar comes guaranteed, 60% of the time it works every time.