June 2, 2024 • 22 mins
In our final episode of the season, we again explore some HR mistakes you could be making...without even knowing it!
We discuss 5 recruitment themed things and we'll tell you how you can avoid it going too far.
- Overlooking internal talent
- Not asking the right interview questions
- Not being aware of bias (both ways)
- Not planning the onboarding process
- Not being specific about expectations
You don't know what you don't know...so we're here to help discuss these with you so your business isn't at risk of not being compliant.
You can find the show notes for this episode here
Would you like to submit a question to the show? Let us know on our website or via LinkedIn.
Brought to you by Aster HR, the Work Wonders Podcast is hosted by Angela Gauci & Susan Rochester and is recorded at Launch Pad at Western Sydney University.
All information or advice included in this podcast is general, has been developed as a starting point for your business, and should be tailored to your specific requirements. It should not be considered legal advice. We have made every attempt to ensure the accuracy and currency of this information at the time of recording. However, references to things like employment laws are subject to change. For specific advice relating to your business, please get in touch with us.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Work Wonders podcast brought to you
by Asta HR, where we simplifythe human side of business.
I'm Angela.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And I'm Susan.
Let's dive into today's episodeand find out what you've been
wondering about.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
In today's episode, we're going to be talking all
about HR mistakes that you couldbe making without even knowing
it and, of course, how to fixthem so you can avoid it going
too far.
This is an episode that we'vedone in previous seasons, so
we're carrying it forward againto today.
We hope you enjoy it.
So let's get started.
This is the Work WondersPodcast.
Hi, susan.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hi Angela, how are you going?
I'm going well, good.
Looking forward to anotherepisode about HR mistakes you
could be making without evenknowing it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Oh so hidden mistakes .
We have talked about thisbefore, but we found that the
list was rather big that wecould come up with, so we've
decided to do an episode like itagain.
Decided to do an episode likeit again and it just so happens
today's few that we've got onthe list seem to all fit under
the idea of talent orrecruitment and bringing people
into your business they do.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
There's definitely a theme and I was just thinking,
you know, this is really one ofthe reasons we started the
podcast, because we could seepeople making mistakes.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You're right.
Some of the things that we'lltalk about.
You'll see how it's so easy tothink you're doing the right
thing.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, this is it, because everyone wants to do the
right thing, right, of course.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, of course.
But yeah, it's worth knowingwhat you don't know.
You don't know, is it?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So it's worth pointing it out.
That's why we're here.
So I think, as you observed, iswhere a business is maybe
overlooking internal talent.
(01:52):
Oh, yes, first of all, what dowe mean by internal talent?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, what we mean by that is the people that are
already in your team, alreadyworking for you, and might have
been for a while.
You know, when you firstbrought them into your business,
you might've had a thought,thinking you know I need them to
do X job, but is that what theydo forever, or can you move
them around?
You know, and businesses change, so why not thinking about
teams as well?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, businesses change, but people change,
you're right.
So if someone's been, you know,maybe started from school on an
admin traineeship, somethinglike that, don't always
pigeonhole them as admin.
Over time they may havedeveloped skills that might be
useful to you in sales, forexample.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
One of the most attractive things for candidates
I know that they're certainlylooking for now is the ability
for the role to be, I'm notgoing to say movable, but over
time, for that opportunity tokeep coming to them.
So whether it is changing,their career or growing their
career.
So that's one of the wonderfulthings you can offer as an
employer, and it also makes yourrecruitment easier too if you
(02:57):
can look within your currentteams and see where that
skillset might already live.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, I've always believed that you should try and
grow your own.
I think also in terms of careerpaths, what can often put
people off working with asmaller organisation is that
they can't see that there's adefined career path from job A
to B to C, which may or may notmean promotion.
(03:25):
But if you start to think likewe're saying and look for your
internal talent and develop themin different areas, then you'll
have examples that you can givesomeone when you're
interviewing If you get askedthat question is there a career
path here for me?
Well, yes, this is what we didwith you know, whoever?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
And you said developing people.
So taking that one step further, giving it some forethought, so
thinking about what you can bedoing even when there's not a
vacancy to be developing peopleyou know thinking about.
Can I develop a person's skillin that area because maybe one
or two years down the track I'mgoing to need another manager,
(04:07):
or that person's going to retireand I want to replace them, or
whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And having a bit of a thought to that is really smart
, and one thing we can guaranteeis that change is constant.
You need to be able to be readyto adapt.
So we've talked about using, ormaking most I don't like to use
the term using your internaltalent, but obviously you're not
always going to be able to fillevery role internally.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Because the numbers just wouldn't add up that way.
So let's move on to talkingabout when you're in a
recruitment situation and someof the mistakes we've seen
people make there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Okay, do you remember that episode we did very early
on, susan, about the quitecomical, very wrong interview
questions that a person can use.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Oh yes, that was a popular episode, if I remember,
we certainly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Well, look, with that in mind.
There's probably plenty ofexamples like that, but there
are also other sort of interviewquestions that you might be
using and thinking well, that'sjust what you do.
Isn't that what you ask in aninterview?
But it's not giving you thevalue that you're looking for.
So I'm always telling ourclients that you can't really
expect an interview.
What if you got 45 minutes anhour with someone to tell you
(05:18):
everything you need to knowabout them?
and how they're going to do inthe job.
But if you are strategic aboutthe types of questions you're
asking, you set out to ask aperson a question to get the
right sort of answer from themof what sort of information
you're after being reallypurposeful about that, yeah, and
so you can make that time thatyou spend with them as efficient
as possible.
(05:39):
Yeah, yeah, so look, practically, I'm thinking of behavioural
style questions.
Yeah, a behavioural question isreally the difference between a
yes or no answer and a reallyconcrete, lived example answer.
So I could say to you, susan,have you ever used Microsoft
Word?
Yes, right, okay, tick.
(06:00):
But what if I'd said to you canyou tell me a time that you've
used Microsoft Word and what didyou use it for?
That's good, that's an exampleof using a behavioural style
question.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Instead, and if I answered, I use it to produce a
transcript of the podcast, thenyou'd know that my skills were
pretty good.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yes, and then I'd want to ask you about a podcast
and other things.
You see how the conversationsort of flows.
It gives you much, much morethan just the smaller questions.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
That's a simple example, but hopefully it gives
you some thoughts there.
Yeah, so what you're after is,as you said, concrete examples
and not just a yes or no answer.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You really want to dig into a person's aptitude and
you might even want to go to atough question sometimes.
What's your opinion about?
This happening in the communityor you know that sort of thing
if it's really important to therole and you want to understand
their ethics, their values.
That might be important as well.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, we've used that , haven't we?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
have.
Yeah, yeah, when we wereassisting a client in finding a
manager for a community servicesorganization, and so it was
very, very important.
They're a feminist organisation, do a lot of great work in the
community and it was veryimportant that the leader of the
organisation obviously live andbreathe their values.
And, yeah, we did ask somereally challenging questions.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
If I remember there were, it was a list of
statements and it was designedto get a discussion going really
, or to get a reaction from thecandidates.
So do you remember what?
Any of the statements?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
were, I think from memory, one of them was around
homeless people in the community, okay, and the question was
quite confronting if you shouldor should not give a person
that's homeless money.
Now it was very telling whatsort of happened and what
discussion happened after that,whether a person said yes or no,
neither of them are right orwrong.
(07:53):
Everyone's entitled to theiropinion Exactly, but it was the
discussion afterward that wasreally valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So that was a way of finding whether candidates were
aligned with the values of theorganisation Exactly, Both in
their answer but also in theirexplanation.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Actually, the next mistake that we're going to
discuss goes back to part of itbeing before the interview, so
avoiding bias.
Sorry, that's not the mistake.
The mistake is being biasedabout who you interview in the
first place, who you put throughto that stage, but also what
your expectations are of thatperson when you actually meet
(08:32):
them face to face.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the reason why this is a hidden mistake or
something you could be, doingwithout knowing.
It is because bias is somethingthat's so sort of.
It can be really innate andyou're not really aware of it
unless you're thinking about it.
But if you think of the way thatyou might converse with someone
from a different culture or adifferent gender than you, or
something like that, or even theage Age yep, you know, bias
(08:57):
fundamentally comes from ourbackground and our history and
all of that, and it's sometimesinvoluntary, isn't it?
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, it is, and I think I've written a blog post
about this, but if not, I'll addthe link, because there isn't
actually an online test whereyou can find out what your
biases are.
Ah right, like it's a globalinventory that they're
collecting, and when I did it, Iwas very surprised to find that
I was biased against women.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Oh, is that right?
No, that's funny, it is veryfunny.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I hope our listeners think that's funny too.
Anyway, but the thing for mewas, you know, I'd worked in HR
for so many years and, you know,consider myself very
professional and all the rest ofit, but these questions were
able to pull out that reallydeep-seated bias that I wasn't
aware of.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That's interesting.
Yeah, because I guess beingaware of it then gives you the
power to know to adjust for thator make allowances for that.
I've got an example for you frommy history.
I remember a time when I wassupporting a manager in
recruiting and we wereinterviewing.
It was for a disabilityemployment service, so the role
was something of like a casemanager, you know, supporting
(10:13):
clients who were disabled infinding work, and the panel was
made up of at least one personin there who was a client of the
service.
The particular person therethat day was in a wheelchair and
the reason why we had thatperson in the room was very
intentional, because thecandidates that were coming in
the room didn't necessarilyexpect a client to be on the
(10:35):
panel.
But it was very telling andunfortunately we did have one
example where a candidate wascaught off guard.
They weren't inappropriate inany way, but it was clear that
they were awkward and would saythings that were, you know,
things that were a bit awkwardand you'd think, oh no, I wish
you didn't say that or they feeluncomfortable, and it was very
telling then to see.
Well, I wonder how they wouldbe in the workplace then with
(10:57):
that particular person.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So that's looking at bias in the candidate.
It's such an insidious thingand so important in that role.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yes, absolutely.
Another example I've heard itsaid the idea of removing names
off of a resume.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, we were talking about how you might judge by
someone's name whether theymaybe have English as a second
language or you feel that theymight not be able to cope with
the role, or you may have had abad experience with somebody
with a name like that before, oryou might look at their name
and go oh well, they'reobviously flaky.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
There's so many judgments that we could make, or
even just simply assuming thegender based upon a person's
name.
Yeah, that's right you knowthat sort of thing, yeah, so how
do?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
you get around with that.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, the interesting thought is taking off the name
off the resume.
So instead of having you knowAmanda Jones, you might just
have Candidate 1 and Candidate 2, candidate Amanda Jones, you
might just have candidate oneand candidate two, candidate
three, and it takes awaycompletely that element of
having to have your brain thinkabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You're just looking at it for what it is yeah,
Although I have to say AmandaJones is probably not likely to
have many biases against her,except from people like me,
obviously.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Poor example.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If any.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Amanda Jones is listening.
Apologies, that's just anexample.
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(12:36):
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Speaker 2 (13:09):
Schedule a free call with either Susan or I right now
at asthrcomau.
Now it's back to the episode.
Well, angela, we've talkedabout biases against certain
classes of people when we'regoing through the selection
process.
What about biases towardscertain classes of people like
family and friends?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
for example oh, that old chestnut.
Yes, I've known plenty ofpeople that have hired friends
or family and sometimes it works, but unfortunately more often
it doesn't.
It's really hard to split that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It is hard because it's a comfortable thing.
I think we spoke to one of ourinterviewees about this.
Yes, family very heavilyinvolved in his business.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Oh, that was James.
I remember James' interview.
He was actually doing it quitewell, so go, james.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yes, go, james.
But I think in his case, and ina lot of cases, you hire the
people you know, because youknow them, you trust them, it's
comfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, also in the case of promoting people.
I've seen it done plenty oftimes where you know, let's say,
a management position or acoordinator, whatever it is, is
up.
Plenty of times where you know,let's say, a management
position or a coordinator,whatever it is, is up for grabs,
and you know, the person thatgets the role might just be
someone that's been there thelongest, not necessarily someone
who's the wellest equipped todo that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
That's right, which is unfortunate when that happens
, or been there the longest andgets on well with the boss.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, or does things the way the boss likes it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, that's right.
So is that playing favour?
I suppose it is.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's a comfortable thing isn't it.
And it plays on the idea of howdo you balance when you're in
an interview and you'reassessing, you know, is this the
right person, isn't it theright person?
Or even after the interview,how do you balance?
You know, do I like this person?
Can I work with them?
You know they're good to havearound in the team versus are
they competent?
Will they do what they saythey're going?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
to do.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Exactly, and sometimes that favourite sort of
comfortableness of going.
I know you, I know what you'regoing to do is some assurance,
and so I can see why peoplemight go down that path.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Oh, and I'm just thinking also about how many
times both of us have heardsomebody say but they
interviewed really well, I knewthat would make you laugh.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
We've heard that quite a few, but it's a classic,
isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And then you know, two months down the track,
they're on the phone to ussaying didn't quite work out.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, it's so unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
So much can be done in recruitment, but it's so
tricky you know, trying toassess a person based upon what
you have in the recruitmentprocess, yeah, and I have to say
I've seen candidates who dointerview really well.
They can sell themselves.
You know they could sell ice toEskimos.
But this is why, coming back tothe questions that you asked,
(15:49):
why that's so important toactually dig down and get the
truth about what they can doinstead of just being, you know,
sucked in by their smiles sortof thing.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah yeah, what's that saying?
Recruit slow, fire fast.
Which sounds a bit deadly,doesn't it?
It does.
In essence, that's right interms of take as long as you
need in recruitment to make theright decision.
Don't just choose the best froma bad bunch.
Take the time it needs.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Actually, it made me think of something else that we
weren't going to discuss, butthat's taking care of the
candidates during the process.
So a mistake that does happen,particularly in slightly large
organisations, where it might be.
People think oh well, someoneelse is looking after that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Candidates are sitting in there in the dark not
really knowing what's going on.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
If it takes a long time and you need to keep those
candidates that you'reinterested in interested, yeah,
and you know, in the world thatwe live in, people are expecting
that sort of fast communication, even if it's just an email, to
say, hey, we haven't forgottenabout you, we're still working
on this, you know, because evenif they're not your person in
(17:00):
the end, they might tell someonehey, I had a really bad
experience with that place.
Don't go there.
You don't want that to behappening.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Imagine waiting around for weeks to be told that
you didn't get the job, afteryou've been for an interview
maybe more than one interview.
So just take a look at it fromtheir perspective and treat them
with the same sort of respectthat you'd expect.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's not that hard, no, no, you can automate
things.
You can, just you know.
Yeah, it's not that hard.
No, no, you can automate things.
You can, just you know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, you can even send a BCC email to everyone you
know Exactly.
It's not that hard to letpeople know what's going on.
Yeah, so you know we've spokenabout onboarding before you know
.
It comes up every time we talkabout recruitment, and a mistake
that I would say I may haveeven been guilty of myself is
(17:50):
bringing someone on and feelinglike you've given them all the
information they need and theycan just get on with the job.
But basically, what you've doneis different to what they do
need.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, so it's that gap between what they need to
know, or what their experienceis, versus what you think their
experience is yeah exactly.
I wonder how many of ourlisteners can share in this
example.
I think it's unfortunately toofamiliar.
But you know, when you'vestarted a new job and you're
sitting there on your first day,maybe, if you're unlucky, your
second and third day and you'rejust sitting there with a
(18:21):
300-page policy and proceduremanual to go through.
Wow that's exciting.
Well, you know, it's been doneto me before where you think you
know you need to know thosethings.
Sure, but is that the mosteffective way to do that?
And what sort of experience wasI having?
Well, not a great one, becauseI'm on my own, I'm feeling like
I'm not part of the team yet.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I've just got to get up to scratch with all this info
Plus, I'm reading about all thethings I might get into trouble
for.
Yeah, not exactly a positiveexperience.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
No, no, but I can understand it, because as
managers, we're time poor.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Oh, we do yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You know.
So it just requires a bit ofthought beforehand of what
you're going to do.
It doesn't always have to beyou.
Depending on the size of yourbusiness, you can find other
people that they could shadow orbe with or whatever Exactly.
But yeah, leaving them alone isnot always a good thing.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
No, that reminds me of a statistic and I can't
remember where it came from, sodon't quote me on this, but it
was something to do with.
I think 50% of people who leavea job decide to leave in the
first week.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Wow, the first week yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Wow, I thought you were going to say month.
It might have been first month,okay.
Well, yeah, it could have beenfirst month, but in any case, it
just shows how critical thatfirst little period is.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Well, that's, I think , why we link it so closely to
recruitment, because really theonboarding is the end of the
recruitment process.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, exactly it's so crucial.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I know some of our clients will have used or
started the onboarding processbefore the person is actually
having their first day.
So they might have access toinformation, or they might have
a quick phone call or go andmeet someone of the team or
whatever it is which can have anice introduction for them.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It's funny, isn't it?
We do generally, organisationsdo farewells pretty well.
You know someone retires orsomething and leaves for another
positive reason.
You know we have a farewell butwe don't necessarily welcome
people.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, another mistake that can be made is not being
really clear about expectationsand an onboarding process and
recruitment is the time to dothat.
Yeah, this is the way I thetime to do that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
This is the way I put it to someone the other day If
you think about your goals youmight set for yourself or for
your business, they're oftenSMART goals you might be
familiar with that acronym andmeasurable, and objective and
specific.
You know those sorts of things.
The same, I believe, is forexpectations.
So I might say to you, susan, Ihave an expectation that you
(20:49):
will attend a team meeting everyweek.
That's very clear, right,because it tells you the time,
it tells you what it is, and Iexpect you to attend.
Whereas if I'm not thatspecific, if I just say, well,
yeah, we do have team meetings,I was just thinking.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I've been in situations where team meetings
I'm not there because I didn'tknow I was supposed to be in
that team meeting.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So yeah, perfect example.
It's those sorts of things.
I find some people forget to bespecific, especially when
someone's having that influx ofinformation, because onboarding
is usually a time where you'retrying to ingest all this
information.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Oh, that's so true, and we'd recommend having a
schedule in that case.
Wouldn't we Like reallyplanning it ahead and thinking
about what you want to achievein that time?
And there's more informationabout that in earlier episodes.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, we'll link to our onboarding episode.
Yeah, well, I think that'squite a list to go through.
It is so.
We thought about internaltalent.
I wonder if you're thinkingabout your internal talent and
what you do with them.
We talked about interviews.
Whether it's the question orthe bias, or who you hire.
Yeah, and then the onboardingprocess.
I wonder what you might do toimprove your onboarding process.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
We're always happy for feedback.
We'd love to hear if this haschanged anything or made you
think about anything that youwould do differently, but also
send us your questions.
Yeah, please do.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Thanks for listening to the Work Wonders podcast
brought to you by Aster HR.
Hit the subscribe button now tonever miss an episode, and if
you'd like to continue theconversation with us, you can
find us over at asterhrcomau.
See you in the next episode.
Welcome to the Work Wonders podcast brought to you
by Asta HR, where we simplifythe human side of business.
I'm Angela.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And I'm Susan.
Let's dive into today's episodeand find out what you've been
wondering about.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
In today's episode, we're going to be talking all
about HR mistakes that you couldbe making without even knowing
it and, of course, how to fixthem so you can avoid it going
too far.
This is an episode that we'vedone in previous seasons, so
we're carrying it forward againto today.
We hope you enjoy it.
So let's get started.
This is the Work WondersPodcast.
Hi, susan.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hi Angela, how are you going?
I'm going well, good.
Looking forward to anotherepisode about HR mistakes you
could be making without evenknowing it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Oh so hidden mistakes .
We have talked about thisbefore, but we found that the
list was rather big that wecould come up with, so we've
decided to do an episode like itagain.
Decided to do an episode likeit again and it just so happens
today's few that we've got onthe list seem to all fit under
the idea of talent orrecruitment and bringing people
into your business they do.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
There's definitely a theme and I was just thinking,
you know, this is really one ofthe reasons we started the
podcast, because we could seepeople making mistakes.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You're right.
Some of the things that we'lltalk about.
You'll see how it's so easy tothink you're doing the right
thing.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, this is it, because everyone wants to do the
right thing, right, of course.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, of course.
But yeah, it's worth knowingwhat you don't know.
You don't know, is it?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So it's worth pointing it out.
That's why we're here.
So I think, as you observed, iswhere a business is maybe
overlooking internal talent.
(01:52):
Oh, yes, first of all, what dowe mean by internal talent?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, what we mean by that is the people that are
already in your team, alreadyworking for you, and might have
been for a while.
You know, when you firstbrought them into your business,
you might've had a thought,thinking you know I need them to
do X job, but is that what theydo forever, or can you move
them around?
You know, and businesses change, so why not thinking about
teams as well?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, businesses change, but people change,
you're right.
So if someone's been, you know,maybe started from school on an
admin traineeship, somethinglike that, don't always
pigeonhole them as admin.
Over time they may havedeveloped skills that might be
useful to you in sales, forexample.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
One of the most attractive things for candidates
I know that they're certainlylooking for now is the ability
for the role to be, I'm notgoing to say movable, but over
time, for that opportunity tokeep coming to them.
So whether it is changing,their career or growing their
career.
So that's one of the wonderfulthings you can offer as an
employer, and it also makes yourrecruitment easier too if you
(02:57):
can look within your currentteams and see where that
skillset might already live.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, I've always believed that you should try and
grow your own.
I think also in terms of careerpaths, what can often put
people off working with asmaller organisation is that
they can't see that there's adefined career path from job A
to B to C, which may or may notmean promotion.
(03:25):
But if you start to think likewe're saying and look for your
internal talent and develop themin different areas, then you'll
have examples that you can givesomeone when you're
interviewing If you get askedthat question is there a career
path here for me?
Well, yes, this is what we didwith you know, whoever?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
And you said developing people.
So taking that one step further, giving it some forethought, so
thinking about what you can bedoing even when there's not a
vacancy to be developing peopleyou know thinking about.
Can I develop a person's skillin that area because maybe one
or two years down the track I'mgoing to need another manager,
(04:07):
or that person's going to retireand I want to replace them, or
whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And having a bit of a thought to that is really smart
, and one thing we can guaranteeis that change is constant.
You need to be able to be readyto adapt.
So we've talked about using, ormaking most I don't like to use
the term using your internaltalent, but obviously you're not
always going to be able to fillevery role internally.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Because the numbers just wouldn't add up that way.
So let's move on to talkingabout when you're in a
recruitment situation and someof the mistakes we've seen
people make there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Okay, do you remember that episode we did very early
on, susan, about the quitecomical, very wrong interview
questions that a person can use.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Oh yes, that was a popular episode, if I remember,
we certainly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Well, look, with that in mind.
There's probably plenty ofexamples like that, but there
are also other sort of interviewquestions that you might be
using and thinking well, that'sjust what you do.
Isn't that what you ask in aninterview?
But it's not giving you thevalue that you're looking for.
So I'm always telling ourclients that you can't really
expect an interview.
What if you got 45 minutes anhour with someone to tell you
(05:18):
everything you need to knowabout them?
and how they're going to do inthe job.
But if you are strategic aboutthe types of questions you're
asking, you set out to ask aperson a question to get the
right sort of answer from themof what sort of information
you're after being reallypurposeful about that, yeah, and
so you can make that time thatyou spend with them as efficient
as possible.
(05:39):
Yeah, yeah, so look, practically, I'm thinking of behavioural
style questions.
Yeah, a behavioural question isreally the difference between a
yes or no answer and a reallyconcrete, lived example answer.
So I could say to you, susan,have you ever used Microsoft
Word?
Yes, right, okay, tick.
(06:00):
But what if I'd said to you canyou tell me a time that you've
used Microsoft Word and what didyou use it for?
That's good, that's an exampleof using a behavioural style
question.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Instead, and if I answered, I use it to produce a
transcript of the podcast, thenyou'd know that my skills were
pretty good.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yes, and then I'd want to ask you about a podcast
and other things.
You see how the conversationsort of flows.
It gives you much, much morethan just the smaller questions.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
That's a simple example, but hopefully it gives
you some thoughts there.
Yeah, so what you're after is,as you said, concrete examples
and not just a yes or no answer.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You really want to dig into a person's aptitude and
you might even want to go to atough question sometimes.
What's your opinion about?
This happening in the communityor you know that sort of thing
if it's really important to therole and you want to understand
their ethics, their values.
That might be important as well.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, we've used that , haven't we?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
have.
Yeah, yeah, when we wereassisting a client in finding a
manager for a community servicesorganization, and so it was
very, very important.
They're a feminist organisation, do a lot of great work in the
community and it was veryimportant that the leader of the
organisation obviously live andbreathe their values.
And, yeah, we did ask somereally challenging questions.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
If I remember there were, it was a list of
statements and it was designedto get a discussion going really
, or to get a reaction from thecandidates.
So do you remember what?
Any of the statements?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
were, I think from memory, one of them was around
homeless people in the community, okay, and the question was
quite confronting if you shouldor should not give a person
that's homeless money.
Now it was very telling whatsort of happened and what
discussion happened after that,whether a person said yes or no,
neither of them are right orwrong.
(07:53):
Everyone's entitled to theiropinion Exactly, but it was the
discussion afterward that wasreally valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So that was a way of finding whether candidates were
aligned with the values of theorganisation Exactly, Both in
their answer but also in theirexplanation.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Actually, the next mistake that we're going to
discuss goes back to part of itbeing before the interview, so
avoiding bias.
Sorry, that's not the mistake.
The mistake is being biasedabout who you interview in the
first place, who you put throughto that stage, but also what
your expectations are of thatperson when you actually meet
(08:32):
them face to face.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the reason why this is a hidden mistake or
something you could be, doingwithout knowing.
It is because bias is somethingthat's so sort of.
It can be really innate andyou're not really aware of it
unless you're thinking about it.
But if you think of the way thatyou might converse with someone
from a different culture or adifferent gender than you, or
something like that, or even theage Age yep, you know, bias
(08:57):
fundamentally comes from ourbackground and our history and
all of that, and it's sometimesinvoluntary, isn't it?
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, it is, and I think I've written a blog post
about this, but if not, I'll addthe link, because there isn't
actually an online test whereyou can find out what your
biases are.
Ah right, like it's a globalinventory that they're
collecting, and when I did it, Iwas very surprised to find that
I was biased against women.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Oh, is that right?
No, that's funny, it is veryfunny.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I hope our listeners think that's funny too.
Anyway, but the thing for mewas, you know, I'd worked in HR
for so many years and, you know,consider myself very
professional and all the rest ofit, but these questions were
able to pull out that reallydeep-seated bias that I wasn't
aware of.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That's interesting.
Yeah, because I guess beingaware of it then gives you the
power to know to adjust for thator make allowances for that.
I've got an example for you frommy history.
I remember a time when I wassupporting a manager in
recruiting and we wereinterviewing.
It was for a disabilityemployment service, so the role
was something of like a casemanager, you know, supporting
(10:13):
clients who were disabled infinding work, and the panel was
made up of at least one personin there who was a client of the
service.
The particular person therethat day was in a wheelchair and
the reason why we had thatperson in the room was very
intentional, because thecandidates that were coming in
the room didn't necessarilyexpect a client to be on the
(10:35):
panel.
But it was very telling andunfortunately we did have one
example where a candidate wascaught off guard.
They weren't inappropriate inany way, but it was clear that
they were awkward and would saythings that were, you know,
things that were a bit awkwardand you'd think, oh no, I wish
you didn't say that or they feeluncomfortable, and it was very
telling then to see.
Well, I wonder how they wouldbe in the workplace then with
(10:57):
that particular person.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So that's looking at bias in the candidate.
It's such an insidious thingand so important in that role.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yes, absolutely.
Another example I've heard itsaid the idea of removing names
off of a resume.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, we were talking about how you might judge by
someone's name whether theymaybe have English as a second
language or you feel that theymight not be able to cope with
the role, or you may have had abad experience with somebody
with a name like that before, oryou might look at their name
and go oh well, they'reobviously flaky.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
There's so many judgments that we could make, or
even just simply assuming thegender based upon a person's
name.
Yeah, that's right you knowthat sort of thing, yeah, so how
do?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
you get around with that.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, the interesting thought is taking off the name
off the resume.
So instead of having you knowAmanda Jones, you might just
have Candidate 1 and Candidate 2, candidate Amanda Jones, you
might just have candidate oneand candidate two, candidate
three, and it takes awaycompletely that element of
having to have your brain thinkabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You're just looking at it for what it is yeah,
Although I have to say AmandaJones is probably not likely to
have many biases against her,except from people like me,
obviously.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Poor example.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If any.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Amanda Jones is listening.
Apologies, that's just anexample.
Are you looking to hire stafffor your business, but fitting
it in around your other work istough.
Have you struggled to find theright people before, but it ends
up feeling like more work thanit's worth?
Well, our team at Asta HR canhelp you, from advertisement to
offer.
We can guide you through theentire process just as if we
(12:36):
were your HR manager, and youbenefit from our decades of
experience to find not justanyone to fill your vacancy, but
someone that you'll love towork with.
You can choose a package thatsuits you and you pay a fixed
fee.
Let us take care of the timeconsuming stuff and we'll fast
track you straight to only thestrongest candidates, so you can
spend your time growing yourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Schedule a free call with either Susan or I right now
at asthrcomau.
Now it's back to the episode.
Well, angela, we've talkedabout biases against certain
classes of people when we'regoing through the selection
process.
What about biases towardscertain classes of people like
family and friends?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
for example oh, that old chestnut.
Yes, I've known plenty ofpeople that have hired friends
or family and sometimes it works, but unfortunately more often
it doesn't.
It's really hard to split that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It is hard because it's a comfortable thing.
I think we spoke to one of ourinterviewees about this.
Yes, family very heavilyinvolved in his business.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Oh, that was James.
I remember James' interview.
He was actually doing it quitewell, so go, james.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yes, go, james.
But I think in his case, and ina lot of cases, you hire the
people you know, because youknow them, you trust them, it's
comfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, also in the case of promoting people.
I've seen it done plenty oftimes where you know, let's say,
a management position or acoordinator, whatever it is, is
up.
Plenty of times where you know,let's say, a management
position or a coordinator,whatever it is, is up for grabs,
and you know, the person thatgets the role might just be
someone that's been there thelongest, not necessarily someone
who's the wellest equipped todo that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
That's right, which is unfortunate when that happens
, or been there the longest andgets on well with the boss.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, or does things the way the boss likes it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, that's right.
So is that playing favour?
I suppose it is.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's a comfortable thing isn't it.
And it plays on the idea of howdo you balance when you're in
an interview and you'reassessing, you know, is this the
right person, isn't it theright person?
Or even after the interview,how do you balance?
You know, do I like this person?
Can I work with them?
You know they're good to havearound in the team versus are
they competent?
Will they do what they saythey're going?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
to do.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Exactly, and sometimes that favourite sort of
comfortableness of going.
I know you, I know what you'regoing to do is some assurance,
and so I can see why peoplemight go down that path.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Oh, and I'm just thinking also about how many
times both of us have heardsomebody say but they
interviewed really well, I knewthat would make you laugh.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
We've heard that quite a few, but it's a classic,
isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And then you know, two months down the track,
they're on the phone to ussaying didn't quite work out.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, it's so unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
So much can be done in recruitment, but it's so
tricky you know, trying toassess a person based upon what
you have in the recruitmentprocess, yeah, and I have to say
I've seen candidates who dointerview really well.
They can sell themselves.
You know they could sell ice toEskimos.
But this is why, coming back tothe questions that you asked,
(15:49):
why that's so important toactually dig down and get the
truth about what they can doinstead of just being, you know,
sucked in by their smiles sortof thing.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah yeah, what's that saying?
Recruit slow, fire fast.
Which sounds a bit deadly,doesn't it?
It does.
In essence, that's right interms of take as long as you
need in recruitment to make theright decision.
Don't just choose the best froma bad bunch.
Take the time it needs.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Actually, it made me think of something else that we
weren't going to discuss, butthat's taking care of the
candidates during the process.
So a mistake that does happen,particularly in slightly large
organisations, where it might be.
People think oh well, someoneelse is looking after that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Candidates are sitting in there in the dark not
really knowing what's going on.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
If it takes a long time and you need to keep those
candidates that you'reinterested in interested, yeah,
and you know, in the world thatwe live in, people are expecting
that sort of fast communication, even if it's just an email, to
say, hey, we haven't forgottenabout you, we're still working
on this, you know, because evenif they're not your person in
(17:00):
the end, they might tell someonehey, I had a really bad
experience with that place.
Don't go there.
You don't want that to behappening.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Imagine waiting around for weeks to be told that
you didn't get the job, afteryou've been for an interview
maybe more than one interview.
So just take a look at it fromtheir perspective and treat them
with the same sort of respectthat you'd expect.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's not that hard, no, no, you can automate
things.
You can, just you know.
Yeah, it's not that hard.
No, no, you can automate things.
You can, just you know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, you can even send a BCC email to everyone you
know Exactly.
It's not that hard to letpeople know what's going on.
Yeah, so you know we've spokenabout onboarding before you know
.
It comes up every time we talkabout recruitment, and a mistake
that I would say I may haveeven been guilty of myself is
(17:50):
bringing someone on and feelinglike you've given them all the
information they need and theycan just get on with the job.
But basically, what you've doneis different to what they do
need.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, so it's that gap between what they need to
know, or what their experienceis, versus what you think their
experience is yeah exactly.
I wonder how many of ourlisteners can share in this
example.
I think it's unfortunately toofamiliar.
But you know, when you'vestarted a new job and you're
sitting there on your first day,maybe, if you're unlucky, your
second and third day and you'rejust sitting there with a
(18:21):
300-page policy and proceduremanual to go through.
Wow that's exciting.
Well, you know, it's been doneto me before where you think you
know you need to know thosethings.
Sure, but is that the mosteffective way to do that?
And what sort of experience wasI having?
Well, not a great one, becauseI'm on my own, I'm feeling like
I'm not part of the team yet.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I've just got to get up to scratch with all this info
Plus, I'm reading about all thethings I might get into trouble
for.
Yeah, not exactly a positiveexperience.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
No, no, but I can understand it, because as
managers, we're time poor.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Oh, we do yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You know.
So it just requires a bit ofthought beforehand of what
you're going to do.
It doesn't always have to beyou.
Depending on the size of yourbusiness, you can find other
people that they could shadow orbe with or whatever Exactly.
But yeah, leaving them alone isnot always a good thing.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
No, that reminds me of a statistic and I can't
remember where it came from, sodon't quote me on this, but it
was something to do with.
I think 50% of people who leavea job decide to leave in the
first week.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Wow, the first week yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Wow, I thought you were going to say month.
It might have been first month,okay.
Well, yeah, it could have beenfirst month, but in any case, it
just shows how critical thatfirst little period is.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Well, that's, I think , why we link it so closely to
recruitment, because really theonboarding is the end of the
recruitment process.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, exactly it's so crucial.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I know some of our clients will have used or
started the onboarding processbefore the person is actually
having their first day.
So they might have access toinformation, or they might have
a quick phone call or go andmeet someone of the team or
whatever it is which can have anice introduction for them.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It's funny, isn't it?
We do generally, organisationsdo farewells pretty well.
You know someone retires orsomething and leaves for another
positive reason.
You know we have a farewell butwe don't necessarily welcome
people.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, another mistake that can be made is not being
really clear about expectationsand an onboarding process and
recruitment is the time to dothat.
Yeah, this is the way I thetime to do that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
This is the way I put it to someone the other day If
you think about your goals youmight set for yourself or for
your business, they're oftenSMART goals you might be
familiar with that acronym andmeasurable, and objective and
specific.
You know those sorts of things.
The same, I believe, is forexpectations.
So I might say to you, susan, Ihave an expectation that you
(20:49):
will attend a team meeting everyweek.
That's very clear, right,because it tells you the time,
it tells you what it is, and Iexpect you to attend.
Whereas if I'm not thatspecific, if I just say, well,
yeah, we do have team meetings,I was just thinking.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I've been in situations where team meetings
I'm not there because I didn'tknow I was supposed to be in
that team meeting.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So yeah, perfect example.
It's those sorts of things.
I find some people forget to bespecific, especially when
someone's having that influx ofinformation, because onboarding
is usually a time where you'retrying to ingest all this
information.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Oh, that's so true, and we'd recommend having a
schedule in that case.
Wouldn't we Like reallyplanning it ahead and thinking
about what you want to achievein that time?
And there's more informationabout that in earlier episodes.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, we'll link to our onboarding episode.
Yeah, well, I think that'squite a list to go through.
It is so.
We thought about internaltalent.
I wonder if you're thinkingabout your internal talent and
what you do with them.
We talked about interviews.
Whether it's the question orthe bias, or who you hire.
Yeah, and then the onboardingprocess.
I wonder what you might do toimprove your onboarding process.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
We're always happy for feedback.
We'd love to hear if this haschanged anything or made you
think about anything that youwould do differently, but also
send us your questions.
Yeah, please do.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Thanks for listening to the Work Wonders podcast
brought to you by Aster HR.
Hit the subscribe button now tonever miss an episode, and if
you'd like to continue theconversation with us, you can
find us over at asterhrcomau.
See you in the next episode.
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