Multi-time guest and long-time friend of the Rebase podcast Elatia Abate is back, and in this critically important episode we discuss how “The Future Of Work” is no longer some mythical thing coming sometime in the future.
No, The Future Of Work is here now, and ready or not it’s time to prepare ourselves.
Continue reading “Navigating The Future Of Work With Elatia Abate”I have a confession: I like being around people I work with, in close proximity in the same physical space. And I have been feeling a lot of the pains, stresses, and challenges of becoming a fully-remote Leader & People Manager. It’s a shift that I wasn’t ready to make, but fortunately a shift I’ve prepared myself to make successfully.
And if you are a Manager, or a Team Lead, or an Executive who is suddenly faced with leading a completely remote or distributed team, then you might be feeling some of the same pressures and challenges.
So in this post, I want to cover a handful of valuable questions that you can use so that you can also make this shift. By doing so, you can truly become a real champion at leading individuals and teams in a remote environment.
Continue reading “Shift To Managing 100% Remotely Like A CHAMP — Use These Questions To Guide You”One of the most confusing and confounding bad hires I ever made taught me my most important hiring AND leadership lesson.
I was a few months into my first executive role at a Startup here in Austin, and ensuring that we hired quality, talented Software Engineers was ultimately my responsibility.
We’d just hired a mid-level software engineer who’d come over from a much larger tech company, and while they were clearly bright and technically capable, after a few weeks it seemed like this hire might not have been a good decision.
Continue reading “My Most Valuable Leadership Lesson Came From My Greatest Hiring Failure”I spend a lot of time thinking about the Hiring space, specifically as it relates to the problems & challenges faced by smaller employers.
One of my favorite “Thinking Time” questions is
“What are the gaps between my customers’ needs and the products & services that are available?”
(for more on Thinking Time, see the must-read book The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham)
Here are some of the key problems I observe in companies that are beyond that “scrappy bootstrapped” phase but without multiple consecutive years of impressive, steady growth.
Here are Early stages of an idea to fill these gaps. I’m not implementing this idea, mind you, simply brainstorming.
In sports (and other industries), organizations have talent scouts whose primary responsibility is to identify, evaluate and start building relationships with players the team may be interested in, whether now OR in the short-to-medium term future. The relationships they build keep the players as “warm leads” so the team can stay prepared and doesn’t get caught with its pants down needing to fill a particular position all of a sudden.
(It’s also worth noting that many large corporations dedicate full-time employees to the purpose of scouting.)
What I’m picturing is this provided as a subscription service targeted at smaller, time- and resource-constrained organizations.
The “Talent Scout” spends a little time with company leadership on a recurring basis to identify positions and skillsets they may need in the near future. They then connect the talent they meet with the company, but on a casual, low-pressure basis (this is the other problem for in-demand talent: Recruiters & Headhunters *can* be pushy & relentless, a huge turnoff). The Talent gets to know the Company, and if turnover or growth leads to an open spot, it could be filled rather quickly by someone on this bench.
For argument’s sake, let’s say Monthly Cost to the Employer is around $5–10k (could tier it based on number & type of positions or something), lower than almost any 15–25% Recruiter Fees on a single hire. Risk to the Employer is paying for months when they have zero need for hiring (which, given high average turnover rates, seems fairly low risk)
Benefits include the ability to better anticipate future staffing needs, reducing reactive behavior, shortening time-to-hire, less time & energy spent sourcing (and most likely for less $$ than an Agency).
Admittedly, there are bound to be a hundred holes in this idea, as I haven’t vetted it beyond the concept stage. I also haven’t researched a ton of comps, so maybe it’s the least original idea ever.
But for those of you in small-to-medium businesses, especially those on a Hiring Team, I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
Drop me a comment and let me know: Does any of this sound like it would be valuable, time-saving, effort-saving in your organization?
