With the UK emerging (or are we?) from one of the worst recessions it has seen, the one bonus for employers has been that voluntary exits by employees have dropped considerably.

With so many highly-skilled people out of work, those in employment have been content not to rock the boat, for fear of adding themselves to the hordes of talented workers who have found themselves affected by the economic downturn.

But research suggests that, by the end of this year, things will have changed.  

Disengagement: A ticking time bomb

Almost every survey conducted in recent months shows that more than 50% of employees are now willing to quit their current job as soon as a better opportunity comes along. This number is set to rise even further as this year progresses.

Which means that, for the first time in a long while, employees will have started to gain some of the power back.

In other words: If you’ve not started thinking about how much Employee Turnover could cost you, now is the time to tackle this ticking time bomb head-on.

Cracks in engagement

Many employers will feel that they are already doing something about Employee Engagement. They strive to keep their staff happy which gives them the best possible chance of reducing the potential cost of replacing their employees.

The problem is that they are often utilising a Retention strategy that is based on what they think is needed by their employees rather than understanding how each individual really ticks.

We’ve asked previously how well you really know your staff. A questionnaire or survey is unlikely to disclose the real feelings of an employee.

And, with a Smartphone in almost every employee’s hand, Social Media is exposing the cracks in many workforces as employees voice their true feelings to the world.

How much is staff retention costing YOU?

Attrition Cost Calculator

Our FREE Attrition Calculator can tell you how much your staff turnover is costing you. You may be surprised by the results.

When a (demotivated) employee hands in their notice, they are taking from you much more than their skills. The likelihood is that, due to a lack of motivation, they will have been underperforming for some time and, often, this can have a knock-on effect on other employees.

Worse still, this can often lead to others following suit and handing in their notice. All this is going to cost you major time and money.

By fully understanding the true cost of Employee Retention, you can not only save overall costs, but also ensure that you are one-step ahead in what promises to be an increasing power struggle.

Sound interesting? Our free Calculator can tell you the real cost of your Employee Attrition Rate.

 Katherine Wiid is a specialist in talent management and motivation pattern recognition. She can be contacted on +44 (0)1780 484910 or by email. 

Whatever the business, whatever the sector, maintaining a fully motivated team at all times is something that is difficult and requires lots of thought and effort.

Equally difficult is ensuring that the people you are bringing into your company are the right people for you.

Will they fit in? Are they with you for the long-term? Are they motivated to do the job?

Talent Management is all about getting – and keeping – the right people for your organisation.

Even the biggest organisations have been guilty of falling into the most common mistake when taking-on new staff. Hiring someone for their skills and, ultimately, firing them for their attitude.

Think about it. The cost of hiring and firing someone is – conservatively – 1.5 times a ‘general’ salary and as much as 10 times a senior salary.

So getting the right talent into your company really has never been so important.

How much of a risk are you taking when you hire someone? Sure, you know all about their skills and experience and you’ve had a positive interview with them.

But what is their motivation?

Research from the Institute of Work and Motivation (iWAM) suggests that an individual’s motivation and attitude account for at least 40% of their overall working performance.

And yet, motivation is something that is often largely ignored, with most psychological tests on the market not built to measure attitude.

Instead, these tools measure personality; not a good indicator of working performance.

To hire and keep top talent, you need to think about a candidate or employee’s motivation and attitude to work – and not just their skills-set.

Only then can you start to expect to witness that most elusive of things; a fully happy – and motivated – working team.

Our FREE Report explains how you can fully understand an individual’s motivation before you hire them, how you can avoid the mistakes that so many others can make and how you gain an advantage over your competitors.

Katherine Wiid, founder of Recrion, is a specialist in recruitment and selection techniques and motivation pattern recognition.  She can be contacted on +44 (0)1780 484910 or by email.

Susan Cain's TED video on the Power of Introverts eloquently probes whether the external stimulation forced upon us in the workplace is suppressing innovation and happiness.  Every one out of two or three people you know are introvert – not necessarily shy.  They get their stimulation from the inside whereas someone externally focused gets their energy from the outside.

Susan Cain has a simple message.  Yet  how many businesses are adapting tasks, activities and open plan work places to cater for individual preferences?  The impact on employee engagement and recruitment and selection could be significant if they did.

Achieving workplace "nirvana" is within reach using a conversational tool called the Language and Behaviour Profile (LAB Profile). It is a way of thinking about people and groups that allows you to notice and respond to how they get motivated, process information, and make decisions.

The LAB Profile is a set of about 12 questions that you can feed into casual conversation at work to understand someone's motivations such as if they are Internally referenced or Externally referenced. You pay attention to how people talk when they answer, rather than what they talk about. Even when a person does not answer the question directly, he or she will reveal his / her pattern by the manner in which they answer (or don’t)!

As you become familiar with the questions and the kind of responses people give, you will find that you can hear and pick up the patterns people use without having to actually ask the questions. You can immediately use the right Influencing Language in that situation to get the right response.

If you are interested in learning how to use the LAB Profile to create a happy, balanced workplace, and accommodate both introverts and extroverts, give Katherine Wiid a call on +44 (0)1780 484910 or visit the website.

On Valentine’s Day – 14 February 2012 – two important changes were made to the Profile that may have an impact on your completeness score.  (Take a look to make sure your Profile is still 100% complete!)

First, the Profile will put more emphasis on Skills and Expertise (Skills can be found under the More Tab as a Beta version).  This means you can showcase your areas of expertise to easily connect with people that have similar skills or with companies looking for subject matter experts.

Secondly, LinkedIn has changed how they calculate profile completeness. The new calculation gives you more control of your score by emphasising things you have direct control over, like Skills, and putting less weight on areas you may have less control over, like Recommendations.

Most important though, the new scoring also takes profile freshness into consideration, so frequent profile updates can now help with profile completeness.  Using the network update box at least once a week is a quick way to keep your profile fresh.

Here are 7 easy steps to completing your profile based on the new calculation:

• Add a profile photo (adding a profile photo makes your profile 7 x more likely to be found in searches).
• List all the jobs or positions you have held, along with descriptions of your roles (having your 2 most recent positions makes your profile 12 x more likely to be found)
• Have 5 or more skills on your profile
• Write a summary about yourself (ideally using the skills you have identified)
• Fill out your industry and postal code
• Add where you went to university and school
• Have 50 or more connections – it’s easier than you think to get connected!

LinkedIn is making it really easy for you to network for career and business reasons by connecting with people you may know, helping top companies find experts like you, or even opening up new business opportunities.  All you need is a complete profile to help you stay connected and competitive.

Check out LinkedIn’s new ‘Improve your Profile’ tool that gives you a few simple steps to help you stand out.

Happy networking!

Katherine Wiid, founder of Recrion, is a Career Management Coach and Behavioural Specialist.  Helping you to move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your working life. Telephone +44 (0)1780 484910.

This is unusual for me as you probably know. I like to share positive career and job finding experiences and tips with you. Yet LinkedIn’s recent sneaky tactics have let me down.

Last year I spent a lot of time promoting LinkedIn to hundreds of individuals facing major upheaval in their careers through job cuts and company closures.

How many other career management tools enable you to promote yourself, find jobs, network with decision makers and do market research all in one place? For FREE.

But is LinkedIn free?

What is your reputation worth?

A few weeks ago I was sent an email from a coaching colleague asking me if I was aware that LinkedIn had quietly introduced new settings with the default set ON which allow them to use your profile information, name and photo in third party advertising.

My initial reaction was disbelief – this was a Facebook tactic!  Would that explain why I had been starting to receive unwanted e-mails and spam from people I wasn't connected to?

Within a few minutes I had alerted my entire LinkedIn network of 422 contacts (which is not inconsiderable) and changed my settings to OFF.

Is the price of “personal branding” our privacy?

Sara Maim’s article in today’s Independent shrugs off privacy concerns claiming that we are all becoming individual brands, selling ourselves online.

“Welcome to the lives of anyone under 23. We are the social networking generation. Our lives have been played out online since before we hit our teens.”

You have to smile …

If I think back to my early twenties when my career was a series of jobs to earn money to pay back student loans and save up for a mortgage, I might have said the same thing.  Shrug off the future you can’t imagine.

Yet we are all living longer. And the Facebook and LinkedIns of the world have elephant memory banks that can come back to haunt us just when we want to get serious about our careers.

Would I suggest you use LinkedIn to promote yourself online – YES.

However, have your eyes wide open and recognise that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Social networks will always find ways to make money – with your data – so check your privacy settings regularly and create a personal brand that will contribute to your career success, not destroy your reputation.

Katherine Wiid, founder of Recrion, is a Career Management Coach and Behavioural Specialist.  Helping you to move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your working life. Telephone 01780 484910.

What does the image of Cambridge, England conjure up for you? Perhaps an ancient seat of learning where tradition and the preservation of centuries of art and antiquities is paramount?

With my meetings finished for the day, I was walking past these ornamental lions guarding the entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum and glanced up to see a man and his dog snugly reclined against the flanks of these beasts.

Both man and dog looked so comfortable and in the “zone” enjoying a quiet moment of introspection getting away from it all.  There they were, perched on an ancient work of art 2 metres high holding a finger up at the establishment.

We made eye contact.  Smiled at each other.  I felt drawn into their subterfuge, nodded towards them and said “nice dog” before carrying on.

Now in my experience, when an "Ah-ha" moment occurs, it is usually accompanied with satisfaction, joy, or a sense of accomplishment. And this is what it did for me.

I had been wandering along Trumpington Street frustrated by my lack of purpose – feeling I should have had a plan on how to spend my afternoon productively. Yet this startling vision of a man and his dog taking time out to just “be” showed me what can be achieved by standing back and watching the world go by.

Look for those special moments; they are wonderful and will be remembered for a long time.

Katherine Wiid, founder of Recrion, is a Career Management Coach and Behavioural Specialist.  Helping you to move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your working life. Telephone 01780 484910.

Last night I had the most awesome experience having dinner with Amelia Russell, a 29 year medic who is currently studying to become a surgeon.  Amelia came to talk to Peterborough's Clinical Society about her 500 mile walk  from Canada to the Geographic North Pole with her boyfriend (now husband) Dan.  They did this completely unassisted (no dogs, guides, TV crews or fanfare).  Why?  Because they wanted to do something really hard.  And have a holiday!

Never Give Up

I give Amelia an A for Inspiration.

A few facts about her trip that inspire me to push myself harder:

• She and Dan took 57 days to walk 500 miles to reach the Geographic North Pole
• Every day they were cold, hungry and survived on 6000 calories and 4 hours sleep
• Falling on the ice that was as hard as concrete  happened daily – once Amelia dislocated her left shoulder which she quickly pulled back into its socket and kept going (ouch!)
• She lost 10 kgs in body weight and suffered malnutrition
• They each pulled a sledge double their body weights
• They trained for two years, pulling 4 car tires up and down the Suffolk hills to build their strength

Two days from the North Pole, Amelia fell into water without an immersion suit and was submerged in icy water for 10 minutes.  Dan wasn't around and she knew she had to find the strength to get out on her own.  After a few failed attempts and a dodgy left shoulder, she managed to heave herself onto the ice.  She says her "Never Give Up" attitude saved her that day. She was so close to reaching her goal and wasn't going to give up.

Above all, I give Amelia an A for Authenticity.

She is friendly, warm, humble and tells it like it is.  And she loves sharing her experiences with anyone who is interested to hear or read about their expedition.  Unlike most polar explorers, she and Dan share their tips on equipment and preparation with others attempting similar trips.  For free.

All the best Amelia with your career as a surgeon.  I am sure you will continue to inspire others to dig deep to explore what they are made of!

Katherine Wiid is the founder of Recrion, specialists in career and people management. Helping you move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your career - www.recrion.co.uk; +44 (0)1780 484910

 "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."  Steve Jobs

Whilst simply walking out of our jobs is not an option many of us can afford to take, few of us are exploring all of the options that are available.

Even fewer are actually investing in ourselves to gain a better chance of getting a job that is more suited to our skills.

Though many are happy to splash out on the latest smartphone or tablet to make both our personal and professional lives easier, there aren’t many of us that will actually invest in the most important thing of all: ourselves and our careers.

Whether you lack confidence, are unsure if you’re in the right position or want to take the next step-up in your career, it makes sense for you to seek the support you need to ensure that you’re fulfilling your potential.

And it makes sense to seek it now.

Many people who have had a change of career forced on them by redundancy often say that being made redundant was turned into a positive, because it meant they were able to switch to something that they enjoyed whilst using their skills more appropriately.

But why not seek training while you have the security – and finance – to do so?

Here at Recrion, we facilitate the Peak Performance Mentoring Programme (PPMP), which addresses all of the concerns you may have with your current working life.

Want to build your confidence, develop a positive mindset and, perhaps most importantly, find  the career that is best suited to your skills?

It’s all covered.

By taking the PPMP, you are not only taking the first step to progressing your career to the next level, you are also giving yourself the best possible chance of being happy at the prospect of going to work.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Find out more about the Peak Performance Mentoring Programme and see what it can do for your career.

Recrion is a specialist in career and people management helping you to move away from uncertainty towards clarity in your career - www.recrion.co.uk; +44 (0)1780 484910

If the candidate has made the effort, why shouldn’t you?

Few employers enjoy the recruitment process. Some are more thorough then others, but it is rarely anything other than a long-winded, stressful process.

Are you performing as an interviewer?

The problem many find is that, at a time when unemployment levels remain high, businesses can be unrealistic in their expectations, or attempt the en-masse interview approach when attempting to find the right candidate.

For example, is it really fair or worthwhile to make graduate-after-graduate traipse down to your offices, for a 10-15 minute interview?

And, just because there are stacks of candidates, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to find the perfect candidate. You’re not. Because they don’t exist.

The point is, whether you have 5 or 500 applications for your position, you need to know that you’re getting the best candidate out there.

And you can only know you’re getting the right candidate by ensuring that you are using all of the tools at your disposal.

With the help of social media tools such as LinkedIn, recruitment can now be a much calmer, simpler process. LinkedIn not only enables you to make a ‘passive’ (someone who’s not applied) candidate ‘active’, but it also now gives users an ‘apply for job’ option.

Better still, is their recently unveiled Talent Pipeline, a tool which instantly gives Recruiters and Hiring Managers their own FREE CRM tool.

This will make recruitment on LinkedIn easier than ever, giving recruiters an ‘Add’ button that provides them with easy-to-use access to over 116 million CV’s.

So, finding candidates is easy.  However, deciding on the right candidates to interview can be difficult. Why not make it simpler?  A conversational insightful tool such as LAB Profiling will tap into a candidate’s mindset and motivations at work, giving you a clear idea on whether they’re exactly what you’re looking for.

Recruiting the right candidate can be time-consuming and, at times, expensive. But, when a candidate has spent lots of time and money of their own ensuring they give you the best possible interview, surely the least you can do is return the favour?

Sound interesting? Why not find out more about LAB Profiling and see how it can improve your recruitment efforts.

Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to retain and motivate their employees. For more information, contact us on 01780 484910 or email katherine@recrion.co.uk. 

A recent survey carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) found that the main reason people gave for switching jobs was a desire to ‘increase pay and benefits’. This had changed from the same survey taken a year before, when ‘improving job satisfaction’ was given as the top reason.

This is a sign of these economic times, with people (understandably) striving for financial security – often even more than career progression.

Even if you suitably reward your staff though, a happy workplace doesn’t always equal a successful one.

It is often the little things that make people happy – not the “sticking plasters” of bonuses and financial incentives. Doug Shaw, CEO of What Goes Around Limited recently asked the question:

With social tools everywhere, why do some companies try to restrict access to these tools for fear of what their employees may say, about the company, about each other and about the customer. Why do companies persist in employing people they clearly don’t trust?

I bet you never thought that that was what you were guilty of.

That is because your perception of the world of work isn’t the same as the people around you. Just like them, you have 14 unconscious motivational patterns that lead you to communicate, act and make decisions in a certain way.

We have previously discussed how LAB Profiling can help when recruiting new staff, but how about using it to optimise the performance of your existing workforce?

Though you may feel you already know the capabilities and knowledge of your staff, LAB Profiling can scientifically give you the information you need to determine their motivations and attitude. This will help you to redesign or adapt individual task assignments to make  your staff feel both happy and fully challenged.

Instead of using “sticking plasters”, why not use a tool that takes each individual’s needs into consideration so that your team can go from good to great?

Recrion is a specialist in career and talent management, and works with organisations to retain and motivate their employees. For more information contact us on 01780 484910 or email katherine@recrion.co.uk .