Managing Careers

There are tools and methods to help employees manage their careers that have been in use for decades.

 

Consultant J Edwards Deming taught us to keep the joy in work. There are lots of ways companies can make this happen.

 

I believe that employees’ abilities are unique and their approach to work is also unique.

 

Employees expect to be recognized for their effort and their accomplishments and these should be listed and described in their annual performance reviews.

 

At EMS, I had employees list their accomplishment and also had their supervisors list what accomplishments they had observed and thought were noteworthy.  Both lists were reviewed by Personnel Reps, who then met with the employee and the supervisor to discuss differences and placed in the Personnel File unedited along with the Personnel Rep’s observations. This process enabled employees to see what their supervisors wanted and supervisors learned what their employees valued.

 

I don’t like to use individual performance ratings because supervisors tend to give high ratings to everybody to keep them happy. These ratings have been used in discrimination cases to allow low performing employees to extort money from companies. This has prompted companies to use “layoffs” and even plant closures to dump low performers. 

 

Companies tend to use “cost of living” to determine wage and salary increases, This maintains wages and salaries and accounts for the majority of wage increase dollars.

 

I determine pay grades based on skill and ability to perform job operations. I don’t use time on the job or education.

 

I use market rates to determine pay levels. Wage and Salary surveys should report the lowest and highest pay rates and the “weighted average” wage or salary for each job.

 

Productivity increases are necessary to be able to afford to increase pay. Those companies who are proactive in their approach to this are the best.

 

I don’t like individual performance ratings tied to wage and salary increases. “Pay for performance” sounds good, but it really doesn’t work except for sales commissions. Many companies have gone to a “pass / fail” rating.

 

Performance needs to be measured using “throughput” by team and department.  Errors and failures need to be corrected immediately.

 

My approach to hiring starts with motivated abilities. Highly successful people love their jobs and consequently get good at doing these jobs.

 

Consultant Art Miller developed the System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA) to help employees discover their passions. This begins with the employee writing the accomplishments they’ve had from childhood on to identify what they do well and enjoy doing. This gives employees the insight they need to make career choices.

 

I also like the Strong-Campbell and Kuder Occupational Interest tests to give employees a start on what occupations they might prefer.

 

At Schwan Foods I gave employees a comprehensive test battery from Associated Personnel Technicians, a consulting firm in Wichita Kansas. It included reading comprehension and math along with the MMPI to determine behaviors. I also used the DISC and Meyers-Briggs to determine personality.

Everyone tested got a full report of the test, because they were the only ones who could use the information.

 

The DISC measures Dominance, Inducement, Steadiness and Compliance.  A high D score identifies leaders.  A high I score identifies sales abilities.  A high S score identifies the ability to perform work.  A high C score identifies exacting thoroughness.

 

The Meyers-Briggs measures traits.  Extrovert v Introvert, Intuiting v Sensing, Thinking v Feeling, Judging v Perceiving. My pattern was ENTJ, Extrovert, Intuiting, Thinking and Judging. Your average “snowflake” in college would be an Introvert, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving.
 

The MMPI measures tendencies rooted in clinical psychology like paranoia, schizophrenia and asocial behavior. Applied to normal behavior, it gives measures on overdependence on others’ loyalty, daydreaming and breaking rules. It gives hints about self-limiting feeling habits.

 

Transactional Analysis was introduced in the book “I’m OK, You’re OK”. It identifies more self-limiting habits rooted in our Parent/Child experiences we carry into adulthood. We have Parent Tapes that may be holding us back. We may have feeling habits that need to be identified and dealt with. 

 

A “Try Hard” indicated debilitating perfectionism and failure. Being in so much of a hurry that you don’t take time to fill up your gasoline tank on your car and you run out of gas is a symptom.  We may collect “Brown Stamps” where feeling bad is the reward we give ourselves for screwing up. 

https://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Transactional-Analysis/dp/0345410033

 

Personality styles tests help us understand how we interact and manage. A “Strong Achiever” often becomes a leader, because they have learned how to do things and know what to do. A leader who is a “friendly helper” spends more time with staff. They are a good fit in jobs that require the manager to stay on top of everything.  A “strong achiever” will need to know how to do every task in the department and spends less time with staff. The “Logical Thinker” doesn’t like to be wrong and is big in analysis. Most of us use all three styles, but this test identifies how much we use each style.

 

Staffs usually adjust to their leader’s style. Many employees don’t like to be over-supervised and need to feel trusted to perform their jobs correctly. They want their supervisors to understand each job.

 

Hiring is critical and hiring errors should be avoided. The art of hiring involves finding the “best fit” for the job. You need to know the job you are trying to fill and what knowledge and skills are required. You will need to post the job and include what they will do and what tools they will use, screen the resumes you receive and interview applicants.

 

I use tests to confirm that applicants will be able to do the job. At FATS, Inc., I used a 10 question Software Test developed by our software engineers that measured their knowledge of C++ on a Windows platform.

 

If you have enough information about applicants, you can assess how well they will fit in the job you are trying to fill.

 

When you hire, you are sending a new employee to play in a particular sand pile hoping they will love it and do a great job.

 

When you hire an entire team, you are looking to add the capabilities the team will need. They may be quite different, but they need to understand what each one brings to the effort and leverage on the strengths in the team. Team members learn to put up with the idiosyncrasies of their co-workers.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader