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Factual Employment Screening Part 2
An Employment Screening OutlinePolicy DevelopmentA policy of Factual Employment Screening; Personality Evaluation/testing; and/or Drug Testing should be developed and embedded into the core policy manual rather than exist as a supplement or bulletin policy. This avoids any “after the fact” ramifications, should the policy be challenged under discriminatory theories.The policy should have an effective date, and if the corporate philosophy is for “purification” of existing staff, then a policy implementation should be evident, along with the reasoning for the retroactive purification of the staff. This is common practice following a recently resolved internal problem, where specific numbers of staff have been terminated for one problem or another. No justification is needed when implementing new programs if the purification is in line with the philosophy of the company.Policy GuidelinesConsistency is the key when establishing new policies, especially when said policies enter into the gray and ever-changing areas of human rights and right to privacy. For example, when establishing any screening parameter there must be absolute consistency within each specific employment class in order to avoid the obvious Title 7 ramifications. Additionally, inconsistent pro

rhaps when you have your next cup of your beverage of choice, you might sit down with your business's plan and look for the inert words in the goal statements. How well do you really understand what those goals mean?

And that's largely the effect of inert words in our business language - it's often hard to really understand what they mean. For example, it's far easier for you to imagine in your mind what it would be like to feel energetic all day and be able to site and move comfortably and pain-free and think clearly and enjoy eating fresh foods like apples and carrots and sleep soundly at night, than it is to imagine having "health improvements". When our language helps us vividly and in detail imagine the result it describes, it moves us, motivates us and almost programs us to make that result a reality. Sometimes it can even move us to realise that it's not the result we really want, and we can avoid wasting effort traveling in that direction.

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a

The Ever Changing World of Careers
You can choose Your careerAre you one of the many people who don't feel pleasant with your current job or career? Have you worked in one career for many years, and found yourself burned out? Or do you feel that your life is not what it could be, because you can't take out your full potential in the job or career you are in? Changing careers and jobs is indeed an issue that concerns many of us. What's really amazing me is the fact that many people - myself included - are continuing in the same job or career year after year, even though they are sick and tired of it and really want to quit their jobs and start up with something else. I think this grounding is a part of human nature: it's a comfort zone that is difficult to climb out of, using arguments as "I know the job I have, but not which job I'll get."Before I finally took the step that I had considered for years; quit my job and starting a new career I did like most people; I waited so long that I was almost forced out of my job because of sickness and tiredness. But when I first took this step and started in my new career, more and more I realized that this job change should have been done much earlier. Like many other people who are establishing work at home careers or jobs, I had to admit that this was my

Avoiding inert measures that anaesthetise your performance management.

INTRODUCTION

You sit before the monthly report, which might be an inch or so thick, and you contemplate whether it's the best use of your time to paw through the pages to check if there's anything useful in there for you. Past experience tells you that the report is full of many measures graphed in all their splendor, but virtually none of them pique your interest, help you make the decisions you barely have time to give enough thought to as it is...

TYPICALLY, PERFORMANCE MEASURES ARE NOT EMOTIVE ENOUGH

Do you have measures with names like these?

Employee Productivity.

Cost Efficiency.

Product Quality.

Community Engagement.

Customer Relationship.

Financial Sustainability.

Stakeholder Buy-in.

If you do, then there's a good chance that those measures are either not brought to life, or what is brought to life is a poor indicator of the result you are trying to measure. Why? Because when people look at measures that are named like those listed above, they often have no idea what they exactly mean, or have very divergent ideas of what they think they mean, or have no feeling of connection to them. They just look like a list of buzz words or phrases that every one else seems to be tossing around.

If people don't share a single, sharply focused, easily imaginable vision of a result they want to create, any effort to measure that result will waste time. And if you do successfully get some measures established, it's likely they just won't stimulate the excitement and motivation needed to make the result happen.

BECAUSE BUSINESS LANGUAGE IS INERT

If something is inert it means it's incapable of action, it is lifeless. Like the reaction you get when you put a concrete brick in a bucket of water, pretty much nothing comes of it. You just have a concrete brick sitting in a bucket of water. When we talk about business language being inert, it's when the reaction you get to a business goal written down in a plan document is little or no noticeable change to the business. Here are some real examples that have personally left me baffled at what could possibly be meant:

"The outcomes will include valuable input into environmentally sustainable solutions to underpin the many proposed developments on the airport, as well as independent research to assist in making effective management decisions for this growing site." - What does 'valuable input' mean? How would you recognise an 'environmentally sustainable solution' from any other solution? What does a management decision that is effective look like?

"Support and focus [our] educational mission to undergraduates in a manner that is increasingly known for its holistic and integrated academic programs, its striving for excellence in all endeavors, and its engagement with the wider community through service and learning." - Increasingly known by whom? How do you imagine what a 'holistic and integrated academic program' looks like? Is it really all endeavors? Does everyone have the same idea about what 'engagement with the wider community" means?

"[Our Council] will increase its responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness in delivering high quality services. Emphasis will continue on streamlining core business and customer processes. Services will be provided in the most efficient manner possible at a reasonable cost while meeting environmental needs" - Responsiveness to what specifically? Efficiency of what, and what would people notice if it were happening? Isn't effectiveness so broad that it could mean 23 different things to 7 different people? If something is streamlined, how is it different? Reasonable cost from whose perspective?

"Lead initiatives that foster diversity of staff and create culturally-competent care strategies supporting the local and international patients we serve." - When you are fostering, what are you actually doing? What kinds of diversity are good, and what kinds of diversity should not be fostered? How would you distinguish a 'culturally-competent care strategy' from any other kind of competent care strategy (is it obvious to those that contribute to achieving this goal what a care strategy is exactly?).

Each of these goals share the prolific use of inert words like valuable, input, sustainable, underpin, effective, support, focus, holistic, integrated, excellence, engagement, service, enhance, responsiveness, efficiency, effectiveness (these last two I think must be the most used of all the inert words as building blocks to writing business goals), streamlining, reasonable, foster, diversity, competent and strategy. You can read more fine examples of inert language used in our society in Don Watson's book, Death Sentence: The Decay Of Public Language. You know there are many more inert words that bulk-up our business language - perhaps when you have your next cup of your beverage of choice, you might sit down with your business's plan and look for the inert words in the goal statements. How well do you really understand what those goals mean?

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a r

You Won't Succeed Without This Business Secret
At some time in the life of almost every person there comes the urge to establish a business of their own. Not very many ever attempt to do so, but it's a fact that most of the large businesses of today were created from the individual enterprise of one person.There are at least three choices open to ambitious entrepreneurs through which they may enter into business. First, the founding of an entirely new business; Second, the combining of two or more established businesses through the introduction of some new plan of operation; Such as the production of a new product, a new advertising technique, or a better plan for marketing the product. And third, becoming a part of an already established businessThe idea to establish a business brings with it two questions. What line of business, and how to finance it. Generally success is more certain in the line of business in which you have the largest experience. It also helps immensely when the line of business chosen closely reflects your personal interests. There's nothing more rewarding than operating your own business that consists of something you truly enjoy. However, the most important thing to consider when selecting a line of business is demand.All business rests ultimately on human wants, and these are satisfied by

on to them. They just look like a list of buzz words or phrases that every one else seems to be tossing around.

BECAUSE BUSINESS LANGUAGE IS INERT

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a

How to Outshine More Qualified Competition with Business Awareness Training
Don’t think you stand a chance of getting that dream job everyone else is going for?Think it’ll probably go to some hugely qualified ubergeek with every qualification under the sun and more experience?Guess again!Here’s a little known fact about why you can beat superior competition to the interview and even the job offer – want to know why?Employers want the most suitable candidate who can do the job they need done their way and contribute most effectively to their bottom line!Being able to do this, that and the other is great but being able to adapt your skills at doing this, that and the other to the specific needs of an organisation and make it that everything you do contributes to a company’s bottom line is infinitely better.Get inside the head of the person recruiting for the role for a moment. They want the right skills, they want some decent experience -- but what is it they’re looking for that will make them cherry pick YOUR resume out of a huge pile because YOU pushed the right buttons?Pushing those buttons is easy as long as you have the skills they want and your number #1 priority is the company’s bottom line.Make your opening paragraph scream that you exist to improve their bottom line and you’ll be playing job off

or this growing site." - What does 'valuable input' mean? How would you recognise an 'environmentally sustainable solution' from any other solution? What does a management decision that is effective look like?

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a

Six Rules for Great IT Project Success
Project delivery makes IT organizations credible. When IT “gets it right” at the project level, its ability to impact the financial results of a company increases and its leadership in providing strategic direction improves. Good project delivery is the key to unlocking the door from the back-office to the boardroom.And yet, according to a recent survey by Accenture, only 29% of IT projects are considered successful. The average cost overrun is 56%; the typical delay is 84%. After decades spent learning and implementing project management methodologies, measurements and controls, the success rate of IT projects is no better than when a single computer took up an entire room.Now, despite the need for companies in the 21st century to innovatively embrace technology to compete, CIO’s still find themselves hearing second-hand about their company’s strategy while line-of-business executives embrace the “IT as a commodity” philosophy.For IT to contribute to a company’s bottom-line, IT executive teams need to ensure project alignment with business strategy. Projects, and particularly large-scale programs of multiple projects, need to be run flexibly, with an eye toward the larger business picture.The following pages present six straightforward principles – culled from

mething is streamlined, how is it different? Reasonable cost from whose perspective?

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a

Pick and Choose Your Dream IT Job in Chennai
The employment trends in Chennai are driven by IT Jobs. The recruiters have been vigorously hiring from Chennai market during the last couple of years, credited to the presence of educational institutions contributing approximately 65, 000 engineers every year.If you are looking to work on, UNIX/C/ C++, JAVA, MAINFRAME, SIEBEL, ORACLE, SAP, PEOPLESOFT, WEB TECHNOLOGY etc… are the right destination for you! There are more than 45,000 IT jobs in Chennai thanks to major players recruiting enthusiastically!Infosys, TCS, Dell, Wipro Technologies, Intel, Satyam computer Services are the zenith companies on their hiring spree. Along with them there are other top notch companies hiring for software/networking jobs in Chennai. IT companies like Accenture known for their commitment in delivering innovative solutions that helps its clients gain high performance levels. With over 1, 15,000 people and offices in 48 countries around the world, India is Accenture's second largest country of operations.IBM has established itself as one of the leaders in the Indian Information Technology (IT) Industry. IBM India has over 38,500 employees as of January 1, 2006 and is India's largest MNC employer. Verizon Information Technology division has recognised the vast potential of Indian softwa

Particularly in business, 'language that moves us' is critical if you are going to design the right kind of measures to give you feedback about your progress toward your goals.

MEANINGFUL MEASURES COME FROM 'LANGUAGE THAT MOVES'

You simply can't measure a result that is described by inert language. Measures are data that we have analysed to give us some evidence of the degree to which a particular result is occurring. Like the measure of employee absenteeism is data about individual employees' attendance at work that has been analysed to give us some evidence of the degree to which employees are available for work. Evidence is something that is based in the physical world, the world of our 5 senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. So if a goal or result is to be measurable, then it must be able to be described in terms of what someone would see, hear, feel or do, taste or smell if that result were occurring.

Some fairly reasonable examples of organisational goals that get beyond the typical inert language are:

From the Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia, "Improve decision making throughout the WCB, ensuring consistency with the legislation (proportion of issues leading to overturned decisions at the review or appeal level dues to WCB error in law or policy)." - This goal has made an attempt to explain what improved decision making means quite specifically, and therefore quite measurably.

From Oxfam's Strategic Plan, "Fewer people will die, fall sick, and suffer deprivation as a result of armed conflict or natural disasters." - This goal makes it very explicit what result they want to achieve, and people dying or falling sick is a very tangible result. Perhaps 'deprivation' could be more concretely explained, though.

From the United Nations, their first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, part of which is to "Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day." - Very specific. Goals like this, that are incredibly sharply focused on a single result, are very powerful motivators. The UN use three indicators to measure this goal (find out more at http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp).

In each of these cases, you can more easily visualize what achieving the result would be like, than for those examples on the previous page. This 'language that moves us' is often comprised of sensory based language, because it describes the experiences we have through our physical senses: what we would see, hear, feel or do, taste or smell if that result were occurring. The Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia would hear fewer of their decisions being overturned at the review or appeal level on account of their own error. Oxfam would see that armed conflict would be causing less people dying or falling sick. The United Nations would see that more people are living on more than $1 a day. And all these things are countable, and therefore measurable.

So the effect of sensory based language? You can more easily imagine in your mind what it would be like if the goal or result was happening, and then you can more easily pin-point the kind of evidence or data you could collect that will help you keep tabs on how much it is happening as time goes by. From this evidence or data, you construct your meaningful measures.

SEE IT, HEAR IT, FEEL IT… THEN YOU CAN MEASURE IT

There is still a long way to go for business, in improving its ability to communicate in general, but particularly to communicate its goals to its employees (to give them direction), and to its other stakeholders (to clarify its promises). It's really not too hard to start with our existing goals, however inert, and make the space for some rich dialogue about what those goals really mean, painting a sensory rich picture of what we would see, hear, feel or do, taste or smell if those goals were achieved. This will make the measurement of those goals unbelievably easier. And who knows, you might even get truly closer to that elusive thing we call a shared vision.

REFERENCES

Don Watson, "Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language", Random House Australia, 2003

Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia Strategic Goals, http://www.worksafebc.com/facts_and_figures/wcb_strategic_goals/default.asp

UN Millennium Development Goals, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Oxfam 2004 Strategic Plan, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/about_us/downloads/2004_Strategic_Plan.pdf

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