Michael Hyatt's Blog, page 13

Reduce Turnover with a Clear Vision for Your Company

Retaining top talent and reducing turnover is a key component to the growth and success of your company. According to the Corporate Leadership Council, highly engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave their companies than their less engaged counterparts. How can you ensure that your best employees don’t leave?

Drive employee engagement by clearly communicating a compelling vision for your company. This is the unique factor that sets you apart from other job opportunities. When employees feel connected to the bigger picture and see themselves as key contributors within your organization, engagement goes up and people are less likely to look elsewhere.

A Vision Script 

What does a compelling vision look like? The number-one mistake I see leaders make here is creating a slogan instead of a vision. In order for your vision to be effective, it has to be specific. You have to clearly define it, and that requires more than one sentence. I refer to this as a vision script rather than a vision statement. 

Here are the four components of a compelling vision script you can use to reduce turnover:

Vision for your team. It’s important to start by focusing on your team, because they are the glue that holds your company together. Imagine your company three years from now. How do you want your organization to be viewed by its employees? 

How will you take care of your people? What benefits do you hope to provide in terms of work environment, career growth, and work/life balance? What values and core traits do you want your team to embody? Having this defined from the top down will help each member of your team be invested in the overall culture of the organization.

2. Vision for your product or services. Take the time to define what you want your products or services to provide to your customers. What need do you fulfill, and how do you want to go about doing it? 

Outlining this clearly will establish straightforward expectations for what you offer now, as well as outline a path for future products or services. When you clarify the vision for what you bring to market, you also give your company a means by which to measure whether or not a new idea fulfills and drives the vision you set. 

3. Vision for sales and marketing. Think big here. This is the big picture of how you want your company and products to be viewed by your customers. What impact do you want to make in their lives? How do you want to do it? 

Connecting your employees to why it’s important to provide this product or service will help drive engagement. The point is to provide a clear touchpoint as to how they fit into this vision and their role in it moving forward. 

4. Vision for the impact. If everything came together as you hope, if your goals were met or even exceeded…what would that mean? Define the outcome you want to achieve. This can include the financial goals you have set as well as other less tangible goals, such as influence. 

Taking the time to clarify and communicate a well thought-out vision will excite and motivate your employees. It will connect them to the bigger story they are a part of and, in turn, drive employee engagement and reduce turnover. 

 

Resetting After a Busy Season

Sometimes, life happens. You step into a new role. You become the parent of a newborn. Your business is turned upside down by an unforeseen emergency. Before long, you look around to realize that you’re not living the Double Win. You’re tired and want to bounce back—but how?

 

A Guide to an Effective Hiring Process

Over the years I have found  a key element that can drive the success of your business more than anything else is effective hiring. And according to a study by Harvard Business Review, as much as 80% of employee turnover stems from bad hiring decisions.

When it comes to hiring, it takes time and practice to learn how to streamline the process and find the right candidate for the job. It’s important to not only make sure your candidate is qualified but also is a great cultural fit who is bought into your vision.

The Interview Process

I have made my fair share of hiring mistakes in the past, and I have used the lessons learned from those experiences to fine tune the hiring process. The following steps will help lower your turnover by screening each candidate for the qualities that will be the best fit for your business.

Do your homework. Clearly define what it is you are looking for in a candidate. A well written job description will clearly explain the expectations for the job you are looking to fill. It should include the overall purpose of the job, duties, qualifications and clear next steps for the interview process. Define the timeline, number of interviews, and who will be involved internally.Determine who will screen resumes and potential candidates.  Create a clear list of what skills and experience a desired resume would include. According to Jobvite, 1 in 6 candidates who apply for a job will be invited to an interview. This step in narrowing down the pool of candidates is critical. If you don’t do it effectively you could be leaving top talent out of the interview process.Conduct the initial interview. This call will be the first impression you have of each candidate and will provide you better insight into whether or not they could be a fit for your team. In fact, 33% of recruiters say that they know whether they will hire someone with the first 90 seconds. (Twin Employment & Training.) To attract top talent, be sure to clearly outline the entire interview process – how long each step will take, when they will hear from you, and what they will need to do for each interview. Use this time on the initial call to explain the benefits you offer, the company culture, and vision of the team.Follow up Interviews. Your top candidates will then need to be interviewed by the other internal employees you want to include in the process. This is a great time to get a clearer understanding of the character of potential hires as they could answer more candidly to someone that they consider a peer. One tool that can be especially helpful at this stage in the process is personality or strengths assessment tests. These tests can help provide insight into the candidate – how they learn, respond to various situations, and engage with others.Completing the Final Interview. By this point in the process, the pool of candidates should be narrowed down considerably. I encourage you to use the final interview to test their skills. This will allow you to see the quality of the work that they each could provide. Talk about various challenges that could arise in the position and how they would respond if they have the job. I also recommend that you bring up their references and ask how they believe their previous colleagues would review them. This will provide key context for past work and helps to encourage more candid, honest answers about their experience.Negotiating the Job Offer. Once you have made your final selection, now is the time to make the job offer. When you make the offer, clearly review the benefits, the salary, title of the position, path for growth, and a deadline to hear back. As you negotiate, keep in mind that a bit of flexibility on your end could go a long way in hiring top talent who will be engaged and excited about the opportunity to work for you.

Using this process will help you find your ideal candidate. You can build a dedicated and energized team.

Beyond Diversity: How Leaders Can Build More Equitable Organizations

One of 2020’s greatest gifts was renewed attention to racial disparities. Whether 2020 was the first time you thought about racial injustice or a reminder of a reality you’re confronted by every day, the conversations about race can’t end in 2020.

 

How to Attract Top Talent

Whether you own your own business or work for a large company, the hiring process is one that causes stress across the board. Many of my clients worry that they won’t be able to find the best person for the job. Someone who not only has the skills that the job requires, but an employee who will be highly engaged and a good fit within the company culture. So how can you go about finding the right person for the job? 

According to Workonic, more than 73% of the candidates today are only passively seeking a job and over 86% of the employees that are perfect for a position in the company are recruited by other employers. 

If 86% of the employees that are perfect for your position are being recruited by someone else, you can’t afford to overlook the fact that you’ve got to sell why you would be a great employer. If you don’t, the top talent will go work for someone else. 

Keys to Finding Top Talent

So, how do you go about ensuring that you are attracting top talent? Here are 3 strategies to help ensure that your team or small business is attracting the best employee possible for your organization. 

Build your company’s reputation. Potential hires consider more than just salary when applying for a job. This means your organization needs to stand out from its competition in a variety of ways. 

Vision. You’ve got to invest in taking the time to create a clear and compelling vision for your company. This will be the foundation that your company or team is built around, and it is a top selling point to potential hires.

Benefits Today’s top talent is going to be looking for a company that offers competitive time off, flexible schedules, and the opportunity to work remotely. These benefits show candidates that you care about them as an individual and seek to provide a team culture that will enable them to have a healthy, maintainable work-life balance. 

Check out the benefits we offer full-time employees at Michael Hyatt & Co. 

Company Culture. Reputation matters. It’s as simple as that. Companies that are able to retain employees and are known to be excellent organizations to work for find it easier to attract top talent. 

In fact, 89% of workers at companies that support employee wellbeing are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work according to the American Psychological Association. This is key. You want your employees to talk about how much they love working for you. Engagement and employee retention are key selling factors that will attract new hires.

Career Development. The top talent in today’s workforce is one that wants to have the opportunity for advancement. According to a study by Gallup 45% of Millennials say a job that accelerates their professional or career development is “very important” to them. You can use this fact to help attract the best employees by showing you have a path for growth within the organization.

2.  Match an individual’s passion with their work. According to Jobvite, 32% of workers said they would agree to a 10% reduction in salary if they cared about their job strongly enough. 

People want to connect their work with something bigger than a paycheck. Why? When you are doing work that you believe in, work that brings you purpose, the value of that stands out. During the hiring process, clearly explain what the organization does and how they can be a part of that contribution in the world.

3.  Increase the size of the candidate pool. It’s worth it. Trust me. The more candidates you consider, the better the chances are you will find the one that will be an incredible fit for the job. I encourage you to go all out when it comes to hiring. Reach out to friends, family, coworkers, former colleagues. Recruiters, online platforms, and social media are other great ways to get the word out about the position. 

I also recommend taking the approach that you are always hiring. Even if you don’t have an opening at that moment, the best HR recruiters will tell you that it pays to be continually networking and forming relationships with potential candidates. 

The top talent is out there. Don’t settle for good enough when hiring. Your team deserves the best, and it will pay off to invest the time to find the right employee now.

 

How to Avoid the Costs of Employee Turnover

If you’re running a business or leading a team, chances are you’re felt the effects of employee turnover. According to a Gallup study, losing an employee costs anywhere from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. For example, a 100-person organization that pays out an average annual salary of $50,000 could have turnover costs around $660,000 to $2.6 million per year.

Not to mention the unquantified costs of losing someone who was extremely talented and a good cultural fit. Or arguably worse, the pain of hiring someone who turned out not to be a good fit at all.

Hiring and keeping good employees is hard work.  It is critical that you take the time to slow down and really evaluate each candidate to see who will be the best fit for your company. It can be tempting to want to rush to hire someone. However, that could cost you in the long run. 

Finding the right employee—one who will be passionate and invested in the success of your business— sets you up for long-term success. It pays to hire the right person the first time. 

I get this question all the time: “How will I know who is the right fit?” I have four key qualities that I believe will help you narrow down your candidates to the person who will help take your team to the next level. 

4 Key Qualities of Great EmployeesDefine exactly what skills the person will need to have to excel in the vacant position. This starts by writing a clear job description that specifically lists out each task you want this person to fulfill. The tasks will then define what skills are necessary.
When evaluating each candidate review their resume, their references, and test them to see if they possess the necessary skills. This last item is one that is often overlooked. Don’t just look at their portfolio. Assign them a project that will show you their skills. If the amount of time needed goes outside what would typically be expected in an interview, you can offer to compensate them for the work. This small investment will pay off in the long run.Determine if they have the aptitude for the job. Are they teachable? Do they have the necessary natural inclinations to learn what you need them to as they go?? For example, you can utilize personality assessments to better understand what natural talents they have. We use the Kolbe assessment. You want to hire someone who will be thoughtful in their role.Assess whether the candidate has a good attitude . This can be harder to determine, but it is a critical quality to assess. I encourage you to develop a set of behavioral interview questions that are designed to screen for attitude. It’s also helpful to have more than one person interview the candidates and ask these types of questions. This is also a quality that their references can help provide insight into. Ask more than just what tasks they did. Ask about the manner in which they did them.Evaluate the candidate’s character . You want employees that you can trust. A good hire is one that you know will uphold the integrity of the company. Again, take the time to slow down and truly evaluate each person’s character. You can ask them questions about various scenarios and how they would respond. You can also ask them to provide past examples of when their character was tested and how they responded. I recommend having multiple people ask these types of questions as they may respond differently to people they consider a peer versus a boss. 

Before you start meeting with potential employees to think through each of the following qualities and write down who your ideal candidate would be. This will provide you with a tangible document to reference as you go through the interview process. 

The hiring process can be overwhelming. Slow down and take the time you need to find the right person for the job. Trust me, you will be glad you did.

Learning to Embrace Risk

Without risk, growth is impossible. 

Stop and think about that statement for a moment. It’s in our nature to avoid risk. Dr. Britt Andreatta in Wired to Resist discusses the “Habenula: Our Failure-Avoidance Center”, and how it functions to release certain chemicals in the brain that in essence reward success and punish failure. Yet, when you really get down to the bottom line, you’ve got to be willing to risk something—whether it is risking your reputation, finances, time—in order to really grow. 

You need a mindset that is willing to embrace risk. A mindset that is  striving to take that next step. To keep going. A mindset that understands that otherwise you won’t be able to move forward. 

This is true both for your career and your personal life. As I think back over my career, I wouldn’t be where I am today without being willing to take risks. This is true for both my time working in a big company as well as when I decided to start Michael Hyatt & Co. 

The people who find success and continue to advance are those who keep pushing for better. Whether they tackle a project that seems impossible, push to break record sales goals, start a new product line, and so on. Whatever the goal, people with a mindset that embraces risk understand that you can’t allow a fear of failure to hold you back. 

How to Raise Your Risk Tolerance

I know that this seems scary. I want to give your 4 practical principles you can use to help yourself become more comfortable with risk. Keep in mind, when I’m talking about risk, I’m not saying you simply throw caution to the wind and take a crazy, irresponsible leap. No, what I’m talking about is an intentional, focused risk that will help you achieve your goals. 

Failure is something to be learned from, not feared. When it comes down to it, so many of us allow our fear of failure to dictate what we do. The fear of what will happen if we fail becomes so big in our minds that we aren’t able to see that this fear is actually a failure in and of itself. You’ve got to take chances, make mistakes, and learn from them in order to really grow. Life is always moving. For many of us, our driving force is to avoid change. And yet, when you really think about it, that’s impossible. Life is always moving, always changing. It’s up to you to take a risk and step forward, to determine the direction you want to go. Practice taking small risks. Now I understand that this may seem a bit silly. I believe that by practicing embracing small risks, you will find a shift in your focus. You will no longer be quite so focused on the potential “bad” outcomes. You will find yourself empowered by small wins along the way. Giving you the courage to embrace bigger risks when the time comes. Surround yourself with people who measure the ‘gain not the gap’. It’s important to have people who can give you perspective along the way. I’m sure you have heard many times in your life that the people you spend time with matter. That they are either people who lift you up or bring you down. When we are talking about learning to embrace risk, you want to have people who help you to see how far you’ve come. Maybe you didn’t hit the goal you set, but what you learn along the way is also worth the risk. These people can help you see “what is possible now because you took the risk that otherwise wouldn’t have been.” 

What risk will you take this year? I challenge you to commit to raising your risk tolerance. You never know what you will miss out on if you don’t. 

How to Bounce Back From Failure

We all encounter failure. Whether we want to admit it or not, it’s the truth. Goals are missed. Sales numbers aren’t hit. It just happens. Sometimes, it is because of mistakes we made, and other times, it is due to circumstances outside of our control. I personally believe that it is in times of failure, that the most important lessons are learned. You find the drive within yourself to get back up, to persevere, to keep going. 

One thing that matters most when I think about long-term success is resiliency. Whether you are an entrepreneur, business leader, parent, spouse, resilience is one trait that is critical to overcoming obstacles and achieving your goals. Other traits can take you a long way. Resilience is what gets you back up when life knocks you down. 

It can be tempting at the start of the year to jump into your new goals planning to “power through” until you achieve them. The pitfall in this thinking is that it doesn’t take into account what you will do when a setback comes along. When some of the initial excitement wears off, it takes a mindset of resilience to keep going. 

You Have What It Takes

Resilience is a choice. Each time you encounter a setback, you have the choice to either quit or keep trying. 

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed or to have a moment of fear. What matters is what you do next. Do you let fear overwhelm you? Or do you lean in and keep going? 

Here are three practical strategies you can use to bounce back when you encounter adversity. 

Keep a written record of your wins. Keep a daily or weekly record of your biggest accomplishments that week. It’s an important habit that will help you have the confidence in yourself. It can be easy to let the things that went wrong cloud your perspective. By keeping a written list of your wins from the week, you are creating a tangible reminder of what you did well. Stay focused on the objective. If you’re a high achiever, failure is inevitable. The key is to to step back and reevaluate what is working and what isn’t, make the necessary changes, and try again. Resilient people see failure as a detour along the way.Take care of your health. Problems are a lot more overwhelming when you are sleep-deprived or hungry. Developing healthy habits when it comes to sleep, exercise, and eating will ensure that your body has the energy it needs to overcome resistance. 

The more challenges you overcome, the more confidence you will gain. You have what it takes to get back up and get in the game, no matter what knocks you down.

A Key Mindset to Achieve More

I believe that each of us has the power within us to learn what it takes to accomplish our biggest goals. To stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zone, and really go for it. When I reflect on those around me who have experienced tremendous success, who have made their dream a reality, one trait that I often see exemplified in their life is that of an experimental mindset. 

It’s a quality that I have strived to develop within myself as well. And I will tell you, it can be hard to do at first. It means looking at the world differently. Rather than thinking “Well, that’s just how it is,” you instead think “what can I do to make it better?”

There are incredible stories of people who took a risk, who set what may have seemed like an impossible goal, and used new, innovative ideas to solve the problems that came their way as they worked to achieve it. We can all think of people like this, whether we know them personally or have heard their story in the news. Instead of simply accepting the status quo, they pushed for better. They saw a world that they could impact. A world that they felt they could contribute to.

Any successful person you see didn’t get there by doing the same old thing. They innovated. They adapted. They changed. The good news is that you can learn to do the same. You can develop a mindset that will allow you to see a world of possibility rather than closed doors. 

How to Develop an Experimental Mindset

So, how do you go about developing a mindset that welcomes change and is excited to try new ideas? A mindset that looks at problems as a chance to innovate and find new solutions. I have three strategies you can implement immediately. 

1. Practice grayscale thinking. This means that the world isn’t just seen in black and white. It means opening your mind to the possibility that there could be more answers than just yes or no. Grayscale thinking allows you to find a new answer to a problem.

By allowing yourself the flexibility to think creatively, you are able to see past the obvious right or wrong answers that have been used in the past—and see a third, fourth, fifth option. Of course you don’t know yet if it will work. It’s a new idea. But you have given yourself the freedom not to see a difficulty as a “no”. Instead, obstacles become chances to experiment and try to find new solutions.

2. Overcome resistance to change by experimenting. For many of us, we are resistant to trying out something new because we are afraid it will be a failure. We have a tendency to stick with what is familiar even if it really isn’t the best option.

To overcome this mental hurdle, tell yourself (or your team!) that you are going to try the new idea out as an experiment for a limited amount of time. This takes away the fear of something unfamiliar. It will also give you the data you need to make a more informed decision after the experiment is over.

3. Recognize that you always have more to learn.  Someone who exemplifies this trait is continually seeking out mentors or looking to others who have achieved success to see how they can use their experience to grow and improve. To have an experimental mindset, you must be willing to see what others are doing better. Take their insight and use it to create your own solutions. 

I hope you view the changes that come this year as opportunities to experiment. Give yourself the freedom to innovate and try out new solutions. What experiment will you try?

 

How to Take Care of Your Team Right Now

2021 has arrived—and we’re still navigating the prolonged effects of the pandemic. You’ve probably seen the impact on your team. But their productivity feels more important than ever. How can you do what’s best for your team and your company?