People Precision

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Why Paying Unhappy Employees $25K to Quit is Crazy

Guest Post by: Bill J. Bonnstetter

How is one company determining whether unhappy employees want to stick around? Dangling cold, hard cash in their face.

Riot Games, Inc. is offering up to $25,000 for employees to up and leave the company, no questions asked, within 60 days of employment if they are unhappy in their jobs.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based videogame maker believes simply throwing money at the problem and shooing unhappy employees out the door will solve their talent apocalypse.

cost of not hiring the right employee for the job“Rather than allow mismatches to fester, we want to resolve them quickly,” Riot Games explained in their announcement. “This is good for the company, and good for the professional.”

Riot Games isn’t alone in this farcical proposal.

Their offer comes on the heels of similar enticements by Internet retailers Zappos.com and Amazon.com, which pay employees $2,000 and $5,000, respectively, if they opt to quit.

Problem is, these pay-to-quit strategies aren’t solving anything.

If Riot Games is willing to pay a sum commensurate to someone’s annual salary just to get rid of them, how much would they be willing to pay someone to ensure they’re a proper fit from the onset?

Riot Games is almost guaranteed to see a revolving door of employees deciding a sudden $25,000 windfall is worthier than being locked into a game of chicken, where each player — employee or employer — is waiting to see who will act first.

There are better ways to ensure people aren’t just sticking around for a paycheck.

Regrettably, Riot Games is treating the symptom and not the cause, and interestingly, could have the right person in their doors but merely in the wrong position.

If only Riot Games took the time to determine a proper fit from the get go — hiring shouldn’t be a personality contest — or worked with employees to see where their talents could be put to better use.

Hiring right the first time through a benchmark approach, and using validated assessments, is an inexpensive way to achieve maximum performance.

As we say here at TTI: If the job could talk, it would explain precisely what was necessary to achieve superior performance. We could ask it to tell us about the:

  • Knowledge a person needs
  • Personal attributes required to drive success
  • Rewards for superior performance
  • Hard skills vital for the job
  • Behaviors necessary to perform at peak levels
  • Intrinsic motivators

Because if companies like Riot Games don’t have a plan in place to bring in the right people who are energized and dedicated from Day 1, then they are simply throwing money out the window.

 

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill J. Bonnstetter is chairman of TTI Success Insights and founder and chairman of Target Training International. He is considered one of the pioneers in the assessment industry because of his significant contributions to the research and study of human behavior. @bbonnstetter

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Achieving your Strategic Plans with Superior Talent

In creating your company’s strategic plan, you’re familiar with three essential stages: Where are we now? Where are we going? How will we get there?

Guest Post by: Adam Wong

The first two stages are undoubtedly completed with key stakeholders hunkered down in your company’s conference room. For “Where are we now?” you connect your mission statement to your core values, then begin your SWOT analysis.

how to retain top performing employeesAs you move into “Where are we going,” you are forced to identify your sustainable competitive advantage — what makes you unique — and from that births a vision statement that vividly idealizes your desired outcome. You now know who you are and what you want, but how are you going to get there and outshine your competition along the way?

It’s at the third stage of a strategic plan where specific activities must be identified to help you achieve your vision, and these activities are entrenched in the people who make up your organization. “How will we get there?” could be interchanged with “Who is going to take us there?” The people who make up your organization are the ones actively working within your finances, your customers and your operations. So, if you don’t have the right people in the positions you’ll need, how are you going to achieve your strategic goals and realize your vision?

Clearly defined positions are crucial for the success of all personnel, and this is where TTI Success Insights’ job benchmarking assessments make it easy for you to identify qualities in your current employees and desired outcomes in their unique positions.

With a product such as TriMetrix®, you can benchmark each position to identify the behaviors, motivators, acumen and competencies required for success in that position. Then, you can match the employee to his or her job and straightforwardly identify the gaps between the demands of the job and your employee’s capacity to be successful in his or her position. Once you have the right people in place, you’ll be able to outshine your competition simply by fulfilling your strategic plan.

Read our success stories about other companies around the world that have been using TTI Success Insights employment assessments to outshine their competition.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Wong is Director of Network Development for TTI Success Insights, driving excellence through careful thought and attention to detail, consistently anticipating the needs of all customers. He serves as an integral member of the product development team, creating new products and improving existing tools to better support the company. @TTISI_Adam

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Hiring (not Firing) for Soft Skills

Guest Post by: Cindy Rosser

When you’re in the process of reviewing potential candidates, it’s easy to fall prey to common biases, especially when you rely on resumes and interviews.

According to a study by Michigan State University, employment interviews are only 14% accurate, and yet 90% of all hiring decisions are made from interviews.

how to select best job candidate

So how do you select the best candidate to serve your company and ensure tangible results that elevate your brand and mission as an organization?

Some of the most commonly overlooked factors in the hiring process are a candidate’s competencies, or soft skills. For many jobs, soft skills are as important as technical skills in producing superior performance. In fact, soft skills are often transferable to different jobs, whereas technical skills are usually more specific.

Let’s say a candidate you’re considering has been using your CRM system for most of her career. In the short term, you may be confident that she understands the functionality of the system. Perhaps even she’s developed mastery of the system. She can run a query, invoice a customer and import/export data. However, do you know if she has developed personal accountability, a measure of the capacity to be answerable for personal actions?

Does her problem solving ability require further development as she anticipates, analyzes, diagnoses and resolves problems? What about her flexibility? How agile will she be in adapting to change if the company were to switch CRM systems, and does she posses the initiative in learning and implementing new technologies that comes from having the well developed skill of continuous learning?

By identifying the soft skills that will make a person excel in a specific position within your company, you will help ensure proper job fit. Your employee will shine, and when she shines, that resonates throughout the organization, and your customers will see it too.

To read more about our selection process click here.
 

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cindy Rosser is a Solutions Consultant at TTI Success Insights, dedicated to serving the company’s network of independent coaches, consultants, speakers and trainers.

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