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Tags : business business success development employee assessments Leadership management tips measurement Philippines Profiles Asia Pacific ROI Strategy Training
Businesses are constantly evolving to adapt to industry trends and consumer needs. Continuous improvement is a necessity to stay current with clients and remain the brand of choice for your target audience. Thanks to modern technology and innovative solutions, improving your business is possible with a dedicated investment and a few crucial steps.
Have a clear strategy that you revisit periodically
Every company needs to have a clear direction in order to grow and develop with purpose. Ever year, revisit this strategy so your entire company can make decisions that will move towards your goals, together. Below are a few questions to ask yourself about your company’s current strategy.
Do we have a written strategy that our leaders can refer to?
Do all employees have a vision of the company direction, vision, mission and goals?
Has the company direction changed? If so, has the strategy been changed to reflect it?
Has a goal process in your strategy become outdated?
Do you have a backup plan in case your current strategy falls through?
Invest in your human capital
A company’s talent is what propels it to business success. Even if you have the best product available, you need to have equally good teams managing, marketing and selling that product (and your company). Your front-end and back-end staff needs to be trained, educated and capable. Make sure they are versed in your product benefits and the company mission in order to relay these important foundations to the customer. Below are a few things to ask yourself about your workforce.
Do we have a training program in place for new hires?
Do we have a regular training program for current employees to stay updated on industry trends?
What is our learning and development budget?
Do our employees have avenues to improve their skills for the job?
Is our hiring process driving away potential candidates?
Are we making sure everyone we hire is a good fit for the company and position?
In order to see how far your company has come and postulate where it is going, you need to measure your successes and failures. To move forward and make the best decisions for your company, you should measure the ROI (return on investment) of your processes. Below are a few questions you can ask yourself about measurement and tracking.
Are you using analytics tools to help you measure social media ROI?
Do you adjust for improvement upon each measurement?
Are you measuring both customer and employee satisfaction and retention?
Are you keeping track of the important partnerships you form?
Are you setting measurable goals?
Are you tracking ROI both quantitatively and qualitatively? ROI isn’t just numbers, it can come in the form of social media mentions, news mentions and customer reviews.
Are you reaching your target market and building your brand?
Do you understand your strengths and weaknesses better thanks to each measurement?
What other things should a company analyze for business success? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Talent Management Challenges for Small Companies
Tags : employee assessments Employment testing in the Philippines Philippines Profiles Asia Pacific
Is your business just starting out? Check out these talent management tips to promote success and avoid disaster.
Start-ups may experience a number of growing pains as they begin their ambitious ventures, and eventually develop into successful businesses. Below are some of the common mistakes to look out for if you are starting, or current running a small company.
Hiring Right the First Time
Making sure you hire the right person in the first place will save your company money, and, more importantly, time. If someone is placed in an ill-fitting job, they may make mistakes that will cost your company time to fix, and possibly damage relationships with your clients. Having a poor job fit leads to a bad representation of your company, and your employee’s lack of skill will not go unnoticed. In addition to the risk of a bad hire acting unprofessional, there is also the danger of him or her hindering the productivity of your other employees. Be sure to hire right the first time by implementing assessment tests to determine both the business ethics and professional skills that your candidates possess.
Knowing what to pay a person can make or break a company that’s just starting up. If you pay your employees more than you can afford, your company will collapse unto itself. But if you don’t offer enough incentive, your company won’t be attractive to highly skilled workers, and talented employees may overlook your company in favor of one that pays more. Do your research on the market and industry when determining how much to pay someone, and be attentive to what other companies are offering for similar positions.
Asking an Employee to Leave the Company
Knowing how to fire someone is more than just emotionally draining–there are legality issues surrounding it as well. For example, your employee may have had to receive a number of warnings before you’re able to fire them without repercussions. Make sure you have someone who understands HR law in your country before firing anyone.
Understanding the capacities of employees as a first-time business owner can be one of the biggest challenges you face. If you overwork your employees, or expect too much from them, you could alienate them. Employees could feel so pressured to do a large volume of work that they rush through their tasks and make hasty errors. On the other side of the coin, if you don’t set high enough goals, employees may become complacent and end up wasting time. Strive for a balance between the two extremes, observe your employees and how they work to determine what a realistic expectation for output is in your company.
Finally, realize that the best talent management comes from years of experience, listening to your employees, and being flexible and creative with your solutions. Want some help managing your human capital? Contact us for employee solutions.
Modern Business Trends: How the Philippines Compares
Tags : 2014 IBR international business report philippine leadership Philippines Profiles Asia Pacific
The Philippines' leadership style is predominantly modernist
In the Fall of 2013, Grant Thornton conducted an interview to understand what good leadership means around the world. They interviewed 3,500 business leaders in 45 economies to find out how leaders run their teams, how leadership characteristics differ in different regions, whether being in a developing or developed market plays a predictive role in leadership, and how different leadership styles affect business.
The 2014 International Business Report found that emerging markets such as the Philippines are modernist; with leaders who are more likely to use coaching, creativity and intuition. Modernist markets also have more women in leadership positions, and leaders of dynamic businesses are more open to a range of improvement techniques such as skills assessments and developing peer networks. The report also found that integrity, positive attitude and communication are consistent attributes of good leaders across all regions and sectors.
According to the report, 90 percent of businesses in the Philippines have used a business coach, making it the highest number in the world. The Philippines also ranks second for women in senior management, tied with Botswana at 39 percent. Fourty-four percent of business in the Philippines use social media, and 42% of companies report a lack of a skilled workforce.
Visit www.internationalbusinessreport.com to read the full report. To make sure you hire, develop and encourage leaders in your skilled workforce, visit ProfilesAsiaPacific.com for a list of assessments and training programs.
Profiles Asia Pacific, Inc. to hold its 1st Talent Assessment and Development Conference
Tags : Human Resources News Philippines
By Jabrielle Vincee Delfin
Marketing Associate, Profiles Asia Pacific
The leader in online assessments in the country, Profiles Asia Pacific, Inc. will hold its first ever international conference in the country entitled “ITADC: International Talent Assessment and Development Conference”.
In collaboration with Profiles International, the conference aims to help organizations provide positive, sustainable solutions to the most pressing issues in the workforce, and help take talent management to the next level. As a leader in providing up to par HR solutions, Profiles Asia Pacific, Inc. gives importance to the development of talents by bringing their passion, expertise and resources and commitment to greatly contribute to each organization.
The Talent Assessment and Development Conference features two days of presentations focused on renewing individual and organizational vitality and preparing for the future of recruitment with topics such as Filipino benchmarking, career planning, building a competency framework and creating a coaching culture. One of the highlights of the said event is the certification training. At these sessions, clients receive in-depth training that outlines all elements of the science behind assessments. Attendees learn how to use the products for maximum impact in their own organizations for activities such as benchmarking positions within the company and training and developing their employees.
The conference boasts noted industry experts, both local and foreign. Senior-level HR executives from some of the country’s most prominent organizations and industries are expected to gather for this year’s event.
Taking place December 4-6, 2013 at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City this year’s conference is designed to give attendees a more in-depth educational experience to help bring new ideas and plans to the attendees’ organizations.
Take part in this once in a lifetime opportunity and be part of history; for more details visit the event website http://www.profilesinternational.ph/itadc
Improve Your Recruitment in the Philippines
Tags : Human Resources Philippines Recruitment
Social Media Officer, Profiles Asia Pacific
For your company to be successful in the Philippines, it is important that you do not simply apply general international recruitment practices. Across regions the differences can be more defined than you think, and failing to recognize and appropriately respond to them can lead to severe problems.
A 2012 Kelly OCG report outlines 5 ways in which you can improve your recruitment in the Asia-Pacific region.
Today it is widely accepted that to motivate employees to achieve their best results, companies need to give them more than just great salaries. Across regions, there are significant differences that are influenced by culture and values, which must be taken into account. What matters in HR is not why these issues arise, but how to respond appropriately. It is therefore of utmost importance for HR professionals to recognize the motivational trends in the region, and devise ways to address them.
In the Philippines, as in other countries in Asia-Pacific, the basis for employee motivation is the value they perceive they have. Applying Western-style opportunity+responsibility motivational methods is acceptable but limited; you must also practically show your employees that they have real worth. In general terms, this can be shown in two ways: through the right job title, and through corporate reputation. If the employee has an important job title, and he/she works for a company that is socially responsible, influential and that gives back to the community, the results will be more impressive. First, the employee will feel more valued and thus be motivated to perform better, and second, the clients will respond more positively because these cultural trends are ingrained in their mindsets as well.
Beware the pressures of a growing market.
In Asia-Pacific, a region with already limited skilled labor, talent search and retention is becoming increasingly difficult. The market is quickly growing both within specific countries and within other developing regions. This means that there are more and more opportunities for candidates all-around, and there are more incentives being offered to candidates by competing companies and recruiters. This means that it becoming even more critical for organizations to find the right long-term candidates who they will keep and develop for a long time.
Recruiters and HR professionals must make sure they have a number of skills in order to remain competitive in the Philippines. They must have:
a) an understanding of upcoming skills shortages
b) access to global candidate networks
c) strategies for developing and engaging existing employees
d) long-term strategies for increasing the inflow of talent
Dig deeper to measure candidate quality.
As I mentioned earlier, in emerging markets there is a shortage of highly skilled staff. 83% of responding companies blame this on hiring issues in Asia-Pacific, compared with percentages in the 70s for the Americas and EMEA. The complicating factors are low unemployment rates, largely given because of the aforementioned growth which affects most sectors.
According to the Kelly OCG report, this means that “it is common to find organizations seeking candidates without the ideal previous experience, but with the fundamentals to be able to learn as they go”. It is therefore important for your company to determine how effective the interview and screening process is. The skills that need to be measured are:
a) aptitude for learning
b) team-work and leadership
d) problem-solving and strategic insight
Perhaps one of the most effective ways to ensure this is to integrate assessment solutions in the hiring process.
The Kelly OCG report states that “contingent and temporary labor has grown almost everywhere in the past decade, yet it has grown exceptionally quickly in the Asia-Pacific market”. Promotion of this type of labor can indeed create insecurity in the lower end of the market, but the report explains that for those with high-level and in-demand skills, the situation is a win-win one. The candidates will be more inclined to participate because this will provide for improved work-life balance, they will be able to choose their favored projects, and it is especially beneficial for women who may want to remain or re-enter the job market while they have a family.
So, how to do this? According to the report, the steps are 3:
a) Determine what the success factors are for specific roles. They may not necessarily require permanency to reach the same results. Especially with the aid of internal networks and the right technology.
b) Focus on collaboration. Give managers the responsibility, but then allow them the freedom to delegate and re organize the work on their terms. They will be more able to target the strengths of particular individuals.
c) Engage specialists rather than generalists. This will increase the quality and productivity of work, and reduce job dissatisfaction.
Improve your “candidate experience”.
The candidate experience is the process the potential employee has to undergo when applying for a position within your company. Just like a customer, the candidate should also receive a positive experience. This means that it needs to be tailor-made for the candidate, and appropriately targeted and marketed.
The basic elements that are indicated by the report are 5:
1) The brand experience
2) The reputational experience
3) The technological experience
4) The human experience
5) The process experience
(See side figure for explanation)
If successfully done, what will this lead to?
There are 3 positive outcomes:
a) A desirable yet unsuccessful candidate will be more inclined to reapply to future opportunities
b) The successful candidate will be more engaged from the start
c) You will be perceived more positively in the recruitment market, and this will increase your inflow of applicants