Category: HRD

Many CMOs have had hands-on experience with marketing automation software to leverage their marketing efforts.  Automation software is capable of generating better sales lead, improve sales volume and use analytics to steer marketing decisions.  It also manages content and SEO. And all this is done through automation of contact database. It enables you to conduct targeted email marketing, content marketing, targeted landing on web pages and manage PPC campaigns. Higher the precision delivered by marketing automation software, higher is the conversion. However, is it really adequate to depend on upon marketing automation software for all your marketing needs?  Can it be placed on human analytical skills as far as marketing is concerned? Unfortunately, it has still a long way to go to gain traction among marketing managers. Right now, it is just one of the many marketing tools to enhance your marketing efforts. There are many limitations attributed to it that impede its success.  Moreover, marketing automation software is useful to implement marketing strategy; however, if there is no marketing strategy in place, this fancy software is unable to do any value addition to your business. The following article will address the challenges faced by marketing automation software that inhibits it from becoming a fundamental part of marketing strategy. [php snippet=1] Implementation is a burden for marketing professionals Marketing automation software is full-fledged enterprise software like ERP, CRM etc. A software implementation is a lengthy process with a high cost of ownership. Marketing managers need to spend a lot of time and resources to get output from the software. Technical skills and requirements required to operate the software are more than an average marketing professional feels comfortable with. Cultural divide between marketing and sales hinders technology growth Marketing managers tend to focus more on generating awareness about the brand through publicity, content marketing, SEO and other marketing tactics. For them, marketing automation software is something that holds the potential to minimize their load to manage contacts and effectively implement marketing campaigns. On the contrary, sales professionals are always under pressure to achieve sales target. Their performance is completely based on their sales achievements. Misalignment of goals and tasks cannot promise co-operation over new technology like automation software.  The two departments still like to function in their own particular manner. Failure to explore its potential Marketing software is high potential software that creates customer segmentation, delivers quality and relevant content for customers. However, many managers fail to exploit this potential and merely use it as a bulk email distribution platform. The usability pattern fails to incorporate product type, buyer’s place in the purchase process and becomes just another marketing tool. This gross neglect of software potential diminishes the purpose of this enterprise level software. Software overuse Marketing automation software may have innumerous functionalities. Software vendors often tend to misguide clients and oversell by sharing multiple capabilities of the software. However, marketing software should only be bought with specific agenda on the mind. Too many features don’t do any good. It rather confuses and deviates your marketing goals. For instance, landing page feature may be available through specialized marketing tool like Unbounce. Therefore, it is better to use a different tool for that function to get better conversion ratios.  As a result, if you forcefully use automation software for a task it does not expertise in, there is no point of using it. Always consider external vendors in such a case. Dearth of quality content Marketing automation software needs a constant supply of quality content to advance leads through the buying process. However, most marketers hardly devote time in producing content. And even if they commit to doing it or hire writers, it is a full-time job. They need to focus on content creation and content curation to get output from automation software.  They need to work in tandem with writers to guide them about the type of content to be created depending upon market needs. This approach is necessary to forward your content marketing goals. Though many marketers aim to implement content marketing, it becomes difficult for them especially small business firms to sustain their effort in the long run. Therefore, investment in automation software becomes insignificant. Absence of revenue model It is marketer’s job to measure the impact of marketing activities on sales revenue. They need to identify tactics that perform better than the others. It is for the marketer to forecast and measure how their below-the-line activities impact sales revenue. To begin with, marketing managers should be in line with sales pipeline. Marketing automation software is enabled to bring visibility to the revenue model. However, you need to fix metrics that connect sales parameters to marketing functions. If there is no revenue model, marketing automation software will add to your woes and appear more of a nuisance. Limited analytics There are many types of software and tools available to generate standard reports about marketing data. However, generation of simple reports does not require enterprise-level marketing automation software. Marketers who tend to use automation software only to generate basic reports are not exploiting its potential. Automation software is capable of generating many significant reports like gaining insight into campaign ROI, Return on Marketing Investment etc. Marketers need creative thinking ability and analytical skills to generate and interpret varied reports automation software is capable of. Poor staff training Marketing automation software is technical software. It needs professional training of managers and other executives and staff who use it. Software implementation does not promise to generate revenue. Users must understand how to set up automated processes. Only a professional trainer on marketing automation would be able to teach them. The marketing manager must have enough time and resources to arrange for staff training; else continuous errors may result in lost revenue opportunities. Use of marketing automation software is conditional Marketing automation holds a lot of potential, but, if the above challenges and conditions are not taken into account, it may be unfit to implement and you won’t generate expected ROI. Apart

Hiring can be a long and tedious process for an organization. It is the priority of an HR manager to find the most suitable candidate for a particular job profile. It is comparatively easy to shortlist a candidate based on objective questions that match the job description. However, what really differentiates one candidate from another is their ability to be a culture fit. Open-ended questions are used to encourage an elaborate and meaningful answer from an interviewee. Unlike closed-ended questions that result in a simple yes or no answer, open-ended questions encourage the candidate to talk more and be more expressive during the interview. The interview is more interactive rather than being a mere monologue. Following are some of the open-ended questions to be asked and their significance: Why do you think this company is suitable for you? This will help you to understand their motive behind joining the company. You can expect different types of answers like company brand name, customer’s trust, employee work culture, or even compensation benefits on offer.  This will enable you to put a counter question to know more about their drive. Why did you leave your previous job? Knowing the reason for leaving a previous job is important to find out. This will help you to assess their stability to stay in the organization. It will also help you to know their strengths and weaknesses. You can expect answers like a conflict with the boss, work saturation, or unsatisfactory work culture, etc. Again, don’t take the answers at their face value and try to dig deeper. [php snippet=1] Do you prefer to work in a team or alone, and why?  A job profile that entails teamwork must have a team member who loves to engage. Communication within the team is absolutely necessary to succeed. However, a person who likes to work independently without collaboration is not fit to be in a team. Knowing the reasons behind their answer will help you to assess demeanor and temperament of the candidate. How do you manage a conflict with your associates? When working in a team, conflicts are likely to arise due to a difference of opinion. However, it is important to reach a consensus to move forward. A candidate based on past experiences with conflict would be able to give an appropriate answer. If not, you can also propose a conflicting situation and ask the candidate to act on their predicament. How do you handle job pressure? A demanding job can soak up a lot of energy. It is important to rejuvenate and unwind oneself. Asking about how candidate beats stress would be reassuring for you to decide upon the suitability of the candidate. Add value to the hiring process To be culture fit, a candidate has to conform and adapt to the core values and collective behaviors of an organization.  An interviewer must explore this opportunity to understand the candidate better and his suitability to take up the job. The best way to do so is by asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions add value to the interview because both interviewer and interviewee are likely to gain something out of the conversation.  

Recruitment errors may cost dearly to an organization. According to HR trade association, bad recruitment can cost five times higher to the organization than the annual salary of a new recruit. Recruitment is a lengthy and tedious process. It consumes significant time, energy and resources of the organization. The purpose of recruitment could be to bring new talent, new skills, fill up vacancies, or to expand the organization. However, the whole exercise of recruitment goes in vain when you end up hiring a wrong candidate. Many organizations have started using recruitment applications to simplify recruitment process including sorting of applicants, screening candidates, organizing interviews, till the time candidates are hired. On the contrary, the mere use of such applications does not warranty high-quality recruitments. Consequences of wrong recruitment Wrong recruitments may lead to poor performance, waste of time and energy of managers to train recruits, poor learning, low productivity, client dissatisfaction and low morale among employees. In the worst case scenario, an organization may be charged with conspiracy or recommendation favors by unsuccessful and more deserving applicants. To avoid this farcical scenario, it is recommended to invest in pre-hire assessments to hire the most deserving and suitable candidate. [php snippet=1] What are pre-hire assessments? Pre-hire assessments are utilized to screen job applicants. These assessments help an organization to hire the most suitable candidate, save time, generate a better return on investment, minimize employee turnover, and boost employee morale.  It may include: Assessment of cognitive abilities through a popular test like the Wonderlic test that measures aptitude, learning and problem-solving abilities of candidates Assessment of knowledge and work skills Assessment of physical well-being and abilities Behavioral assessment or predictive index that measures personality to predict candidate’s willingness to perform a particular job function Emotional intelligence tests to assess self-awareness, self-motivation, empathy, managing emotions and handling relationships Language proficiency test in terms of speaking and writing capabilities Caliper and Myers-Briggs behavioral assessment to measure general behavioral tendencies Similarly, there may be assessment tests to check honesty traits, selling and negotiation skills. Understanding the usability of pre-hire assessments Validity and reliability of assessment Pre-hire assessments hold immense potential for selection of the right candidate. However, the employer must ensure whether the test deployed actually meets the criterion used to measure the performance of candidate on the job. There has to be significant proof about the test’s validity. The test should not be biased towards certain candidates and should result in fair selection.  It should be reliable enough to measure candidate’s score.  The repeated attempts of test should not change candidate’s score. For instance, a test should not be biased towards a specific gender, religion or community. To avoid any dispute regarding the validity and reliability of pre-hire assessments, employers should always use certified tests.  The tests should comply with employment laws and should not be overtly personal in nature.  Well-developed assessments lead to reduced employee turnover and improves the probability of job success. Explore your options Tests should be developed by organizational psychologists with prior experience of testing in the industry. Employers must explore a variety of tests available in the market to choose the ones that conform to their needs.  There are industry-specific tests available and employers should be well versed with them. Employers should know what assessments can be invalid for them. Some pre-hire assessments become conclusive only when coupled with other assessments. For instance, personality test alone is of no use, it should be coupled with at least one cognitive ability test. Hire a specialist to interpret results Hiring is done based on subjective & objective data and also on intuition. Employers don’t have the expertise to interpret test results. If there are some external factors that are likely to affect test results, they must be taken into account to infer fair results. It is always advisable to hire a specialist who can evaluate all parameters and do justice to the job position at stake. Clarity about job function Pre-hire assessments are null and void when there is no lucidity about job position for which candidates are hired. Job profile should be given a lot of attention during an assessment. There is a need to revisit job profile to ensure that assessment is in compliance with it.  It should be tailored to the specific job profile. If a candidate is hired for a customer-service oriented role, it is important that potential recruit is extrovert, gregarious, and talkative. Therefore, apart from quantitative aspects, HR managers should also focus on interpersonal behaviors and personality traits of candidates. In-depth assessment required for C-class positions Identify the top traits required for a particular job profile and use them as benchmarks while assessing candidates. Some job profiles require in-depth assessment especially C-class positions owing to the complexity of the role. In that case, assessments must include factors like motivation, assertiveness, accountability, decision-making, relationship, crisis-handling, critical thinking skills, brainstorming etc. Correlation between pre-hire assessment and current employee performance Investment in pre-hire assessments should give a big return on investment. And it can happen only when companies can realize the potential to grow with the candidate before they are hired. An appropriate way to go forward to is to correlate pre-hire assessments with ongoing employee performance to get better results. This helps employers to identify skills attributed to better performance. This approach is effective only when companies use rigorously profiling of employees to identify top performers. Training managers are equipped better to design programs Pre-hire assessments are quite beneficial from training perspective. Training managers can plan their learning approach for employees based on pre-hire assessment results. This enables them to build programs based on current skill level of new hires. Pre-hiring assessments are an integral part of hiring process Pre-hire assessments are a part of hiring process. It helps you to screen candidates before they reach the one-on-one interview stage. This saves you a lot of time in interviewing inapt candidates. Nonetheless, HR managers should always include other traditional measures like interviews, social networking sites, referrals

Businesses are prone to risks of market volatility. Ability to deal with such risks is heightened by human capital risks. It is always difficult for HR managers to predict which employees are likely to quit. Business owners have often paid least attention to HR department owing to its inability to contribute towards strategic business decisions. Employee dissatisfaction or any other latent reason may trigger a sudden exodus of employees from a company. This can cost heavily to the company leading to loss of business productivity, bad reputation in the market, customer dissatisfaction and deterioration of work quality. Instinctive prediction can be misleading because it is not supported by facts. Predictive metrics follows a purely data-driven approach and is gaining importance through its impact on talent management function. What is predictive metrics? Predictive metrics is a value-added process for HR managers to enhance their decision-making abilities by defining factors associated with employee turnover.  Managers can use parameters like employee history, job functions held, the time between promotions, the time between change of job, personal data, current profile, time spent in current profile, employee performance, and many other business factors to take informed decisions and help their company to grow.  The data can also be put to use to find out which departments or teams face a higher risk of turnover. [php snippet=1] Predictive metrics allow businesses to identify and understand risks associated with employee retention. Such metrics may include the number of top performers at high risk of resigning in the next one year and costs associated with filling the vacancy. A number of HR analytics applications have surfaced in the market that assists in the processing of real-time data. Analysts use various three-dimensional predictive metrics to understand employee turnover patterns. Firstly, it is important to study turnover patterns in the past few years. Secondly, how have those patterns evolved over the past years. Thirdly, what new metrics can be taken into account that affects employee turnover. What does predictive metrics do? Identify the factors attributed to key targeted employees likely to resign and assign a risk ratio to each of those employees. Identify the factors attributed to new hires like characteristics, job history etc to predict the probability of high performance over the next 12 months. Estimate the impact of employee training programs and other talent management functions on business revenue. Estimate revenue per employee generated today and likely to be generated in future. This helps you to keep a check on labor costs in comparison with business revenue. Conduct employee satisfaction survey and analyze the factors that need to be addressed seriously. Use a talent index that compares performances of different teams and managers. Talent index number can be used to identify problems associated with employees and managers. How does predictive metrics help in anticipating attrition? Employee productivity  Assessment of employee productivity plays an important role in predictive metrics. Factors that positively impact productivity can be highly useful to HR managers. A graphical representation of employee productivity curve will give an insight into problems and corrective measures can be taken. Employee behavior Employee behavioral issues are often neglected in the organization. Negative behavior among employees has strong implication for attrition. Metrics like negligence, punctuality, absenteeism, sick leave, low morale, lack of commitment etc can be used to suggest effective solutions to deal with behavioral problems. Career trajectory Progression of new hires is critical to understand the quality of recruitment. Career trajectory can help managers to understand how fast new hires are likely to grow and contribute towards organizational success. It can further help them to predict the duration of their stay in the organization. Personal and professional goals should be in line to ensure that the employee does not quit. A similar progression can be drawn for existing employees in the company. Successful managers A successful manager ensures that every team member is happy. Apart from that, he is responsible for productivity, innovation, hiring and control employee turnover. Identify the metrics that defines the success of a manager. Such metrics can help you to identify and improve weak managers. It can also help you to spot employees capable to become a successful manager. A similar metrics can be drawn to identify new hires and current employees with good leadership capabilities. Large-scale openings HR managers are poorly prepared to predict large position openings. Establishing metrics that help them to predict what position will have maximum openings in future can lead to better planning for training, internal promotions or need for external hiring. Failure to do so negatively impacts business causing a sudden peak in turnover. Well-timed talent hiring Predictive metrics enable HR managers to hire talent at the right time. Hiring when all your competitors are aggressively hiring is not a good hiring tactic. Predictive metrics helps to identify the right time for your organization to hunt for talent to get most qualified and talented candidates.   It also helps you to spot surplus talent in certain areas in the organization so that you can plan to fill up top positions well in advance. Layoffs Hiring is not always a necessity. Many a time, organizations respond to market dynamics to layoff. Predictive metric helps you to forecast the need for shrinking. Once you know, shrinking is imperative, you can concentrate to spot and hold the best talent in the organization. Internal shuffling Predictive metrics helps you to conduct an internal movement of employees. There are times when employee shuffling is important to bring new energy and improve the productivity of the organization. Employees with a suitable set of skills can be deployed in better positions to exploit their talent and avoid work dissatisfaction. Temps Predictive metrics allows HR managers to project the need for temporary or contract workers. An organization may require extra manpower for a short duration or during the course of a particular project. Rather than hiring full-time employees which are an additional burden on human capital, part-time workers can be hired. Hiring full-time employees and then suddenly