Big Brother (Your Boss) Really IS Watching you at Work

Karen Mattonen wrote an article essentially complaining about lack of employee privacy in the workplace. She didn't outright say employees need more privacy on their computer but she definitely implied it. Personally I don't have any problem with employers monitoring my every key stroke on their computers while I'm being paid by them. I feel that there is no expectation of privacy for what I do on my employer's computer so I should be very careful about what actions I take while on the computer.

I figure employers can go one of two directions in order to protect themselves when it come to internet and phone activity. They can limit the sites that their employees have access to. This could be accomplished by blocking all websites except those deemed necessary to do ones job. Similar action would also need to take place with regards to file sharing and cell phone usage. Or, the company can allow it's employees unfettered use of all the technology at their disposal, but monitor it. To me, this is a much better solution for both the employer and the employee. The employee has more freedom to do whatever needs to be done to get the job done and the employer has the ability to make sure the employee is not doing anything improper.

One statistic that Mattonen used that suprised me is that 92 percent of employers monitor their employees in some way or another. To me it is astounding that 8 percent of employers don't protect themselves in any way. To not know what is being done by your employees with your property is to ask for trouble. It could invite any number of lawsuits. Also, it's just asking the dishonest employee to push the limits of trust and to use your property improperly.

Social Networking Profiles and the War for Talent

I just read a very nice article with a lot of great suggestions for both recruiters and applicants with regards to social networking sites. In the article Pamala Moore sets out a few common sense guidelines for making sure to not use the information gather inappropriately.

My favorite of her points is that, "you might have some questionable behavior in your past that never stopped you from being great at your job." This, I believe, is the essence of how we use social networking sites for recruitment decisions. One mistake should not be used to rule out a candidate. This could result in the ruling out of a candidate who might have otherwise been the most qualified of the pool. Moore points out that it is always a good idea to use as many sources as possible to make your hiring decision. It's ok to use information found on the internet, but you risk limiting your talent pool of you don't look at enough other factors.

The other of Pamala's points that I appreciated was that if the information that you find on the internet pertains to a person's race, gender, national origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability, marital status, or veteran status then you probably have not business using it to make any sort of hiring decision. In general, I believe, her main point was you cannot rely too much on what is found on the internet.

As for the applicant, her advise was simple: if it's on the internet, people will see it. Be smart what you leave on the internet.

A quote that she had in the article: “…like it or not, as a general proposition, employers are free to make unfair, stupid, arbitrary, and wrongheaded hiring and termination decisions, even based on false information, as long as in doing so they do not violate some specific law.”

- George Lenard of Harris, Dowell, Fisher & Harris, LC

- So true

Time to re-direct the focus of my project

So, as some of you may or may not remember from class, Jun gave us the specific instructions to NOT simply stand in front of the class and say, "this is my problem. I solved the problem by using Google Sites." I'm not sure if that was in direct response to my blog on my project, but that was exactly what I had planned for my presentation. Now it's time to refocus more toward a process oriented approach.

To recap, at B&L Bike Shop we have no written policies and very little formal training. This has made things very difficult on new staff and has increased the work and stress level for the more experienced staff. I want to look into ways to solve this problem.

Key to the solution is going to be change management. Currently we have a culture of blame and defense. This means that if you can, make sure to blame the problem on someone else, and if you can't, defend yourself to the very end. When someone makes a mistake the approach is how can I cover my rear end(I have the feeling this is not a dynamic unique to the B&L work place). We need to change how we look at problems that arise from one of cover one's posterior to one of trying to make it so the mistake does not happen in the future. In essence we will need to shift to culture to center more around the learning process. This means that if there is a problem with inventory, or a customer policy is not followed properly we need to look at it as a structural flaw, not a personnel flaw.

This aspect of the project will be very tough. I don't know quite how I will be able to change the company culture without the help of the owner/manager. As I get further and further into this project it is become more and more clear that this will have to happen from the top down, not from the bottom up as I had originally hoped.

Tell me about Jibber Jobber, Roy!

As many of you may know, I am currently seeking employment outside of the bicycle retail environment. As such I've started using Jibber Jobber as a job searching tool. It is also a networking and application tracking system. To me, it essentially feels like Avature, intended for the job seeker instead of the applicant seeker. The experience feels mostly web 2.0 to me. I can tell the developers have worked very hard to put a lot of tools into the website while still attempting not to clutter it.

One module that it incorporates is a networking tracking tool. The idea of it is that you use it similar to LinkedIn. When you meet a person important to your career network you note the person's specifics as well as making notes. You are then able to schedule follow up reminders. You're able to enter in the person's work and personal information as well as many other details.

Another tool that Jibber Jobber uses is a company tracker. It allows you to track the companies and jobs that you've applied for. It allows you to link the resume and cover letter that you applied with to the job which is linked to the company. From there you can schedule follow up tasks as well as keeping track of responses from the company - such as follow up interviews or rejections.
For me, so far, my favorite tool is the job searched and applied to function. It has a job searching function that I would say is very similar to Avature's resume searching function. It singles out specific jobs websites and allows you to search them for key works in job titles. While the function is not nearly as powerful as Avature's tool, it has helped to speed up the search a little.

I believe Jibber Jobber has the right idea with a lot of their tools, but still has room to grow. For instance, they could allow the job searcher to search more than one jobs website at a time. Or, once a job has been found, it would be nice if the job seeker could import that job directly into their positions module. Currently they need to enter jobs manually.

All in all I would say Jibber Jobber definitely has some useful tools, although I'm not sure if if it actually solves a problem for me. Like any new software I will need to use it for a while before I can be sure if it's any better than my previous method.

Let's Talk About HireVue

Though we have spoken briefly about HireVue in class I feel the need to review it more in depth for those of you who might want to know a little more about it.

First off, I have to note that I am in no way an expert on the program - in fact I haven't even used it. I have merely spent a bit of time reading about them on their website as well as a few reviews. From what I've seen, it seems that while they are not for every recruiter, they can be very useful for a lot of them.

HireVue is a SaaS that allows a company to send a USB web cam to an applicant anywhere in the world with in 48 hours. The applicant plugs it into their computer and answers interview questions through their web browser. The program also allows the company to post essay question, short answer questions, true/false and questions that require calculations. As soon as the applicant has completed their interview, it can be viewed from anywhere in the world by whomever the company wants to have access. Recruiters and hiring managers can type comments and rate the candidates. They can review answers to specific questions of each applicant back to back. They can even attach resumes, standardized tests and writing samples to the applicant's file.

From what I can tell, it seems to me that HireVue has two main niches that they are trying to fill within recruiting. One is globally sourcing specialized, expensive talent. The other is hiring lots of cheap local labor. Often times hiring for a specialized position will require a significant investment of time and resources to bring candidates to one location and to meet with many different managers - sometimes then needing to move the candidate to multiple locations for meetings, further increasing costs. The benefit of HireVue in this instance is obvious. It will allow for the recruitment process to proceed one step further before the need to invest significant capital into the candidate.

The second niche that HireVue can help with is with the recruitment of cheap local labor. HireVue can allow recruiters and mangers to review initial interviews exceptionally faster than the time it would take to be present at a large number of interviews. It also allows the user to review and rate the answers, making it easier to decide exactly who needs a more extensive follow up interview.

As I see it, the main downside to HireVue is that it must depend on well written questions. If the interview is not carefully scripted, the recruiters might not gain the rich data about their applicants that they had hoped for.

Of course, HireVue seems to only be useful as a tool for lowering the costs of the initial interviews. For now, companies will still need to invest significant time and capital in the final interviews where the actual hiring decision is made.

10 Commandments of Internet Candidate Research

Last month Moises Lopez wrote an article in which he describes the "ten commandments of internet candidate research." They were all pretty straight forward. Make sure to plan. Make sure to refine. However, a couple commandments caught my attention. The second commandment, "define what you are targeting," seems pretty straight forward. What I found interesting was his comment, "focus on the skill more so than the key word." It strikes me that possibly this should be the title of this commandment. I feel that with today's search engines like Avature it is so easy for recruiters to simply type in a few key words and use the number of responses to rank the resumes. While this seems like it'll narrow the search easily enough it seems to me as though it's a very easy way to ensure that you know nothing about the candidate pool. Very conceivably the recruiter might not even consider the top talent within the pool.

What I find confusing about the post is what exactly Moises does mean by "focusing on the skill." I'm not necessarily sure I know how one would do this without using key words. The idea is all fine and dandy, but I guess I just don't have enough recruiting experience to truly understand what he means by this concept.

A few other points are made that are worthy of mention. For one, Moises instructs us to define the search as much as possible. He says that a recruiter needs to use as many advanced Boolean searches as possible. Here, he probably could have made the point that if you're lazy, you may not come to the best possible outcome (as I suppose is one main rule of life).

The Uses of Social Networking in Tech Support

In one of Steve Boese's recent blogs he posts what seems to me to be a really decent idea. His thoughts are with regards to supporting a new enterprise-wide IT solution. He talks about the different phases of support. When a company first roles out a new technology most of the support revolves around making the system work. The end users most often have "how do I do. . . " questions. The answers are most often easy and quick to come across. After the initial roll-out phase, the company will then enter a functionality phase. Instead of wanting to know how to do something, the end-users will then want to know what more the program can do for them. This can be call the "but can it do. . . " phase. After most of the questions are addressed, Boese says most of the support issues die off. As time goes on they come back with a vengeance.

The issue here, is that natural attrition leads to a loss of talented individuals who understand how to make the program sing and dance. Now, we're back to the "how do I. . . " questions.

Steve's proposal is to form a sort of wiki for the end users. He argues that most of his questions after the initial roll0out phase are very repetitive. In fact, they are questions that almost always can be answered by other employees who have had the same problem. Steve wants to introduce structured, monitored forums where people can discuss problems that they've had and how they've solved their problems. This could have many benefits for the business.

The first would be that rather than everyone needing to wait for an answer from one place, they can often get the answer faster from an online forum. Second, Steve points out that a system like that would build a stronger, more shareable body of organizational knowledge.

Given all of the benefits and the relative ease with which a forum could be started I don't see any very good reasons not to give it a try. If such an program takes hold, then great. If it doesn't, the company has lost relatively little in terms of time and capital. The only down side I could see is if an over-zealous management tries to reduce costs by relying too much forums and cuts the tech support all together.