I’m figuring this is a good moment to talk about our/my policy of recruiting while there are no empty slots. If I had people ready to go for CS we wouldn’t be training twice, temp first and then the long term CS hire. We wouldn’t be stressed, and also work won’t suffer while we are short staffed.  The fact is people always look for self and/or pay improvement, we’re not planning not can we stop that. All we can do is be prepared.  As we witnessed last 10 days, it is reality, it happens quickly and unpredictably.

Keeping group interviews going even when there are no vacancies is the only way we can hire in a planned way versus reacting to an empty seat coming up. In the last 2 people leaving we’ve had 1 weeks and 2 weeks notice respectively and I’ve never had more than a 2 week notice. Unless I already have suitable candidates identified in the surrounding areas, it will be a miracle to fill it in 2 weeks with a great person. A team HR plan cannot obviously rely on miracles happening consecutively. And I will not compromise on who gets to work here.

Furthermore, a recruiting system should not focus just on replacements but also on growth. We cannot predict every time when we’ll need a person, and who we’ll need. If there’s someone out there who wants to join my team, and is good, I need to know that person.

So currently we have a system in place where we are recruiting with ads, and identifying with group interviews candidates, we may not see a need for immediately. The non traditional aspects are obviously, how do people already in Homespice feel, and how do people we interview feel ?

What I do wonder is if I can I keep a player on the “sidelines” waiting for  position to open up on the field for up to 6 months, even though they would have joined some other team by then?  Is it possible ? Any creative ideas ? If you work at Homespice, how do you feel ?

You know I’ve wondered that too. What is this idea of  ”core values” or ” aligning your company with core values?”. What does it have  to do with work anyway ?

To find my answer, I had to start at the beginning…”What is a company?” I mean isn’t a company an organization selling a product or service? That may be what Uncle Sam calls it, but I don’t think it answers the social question, or social definition of a company. A company is a group of people engaged in delivering something society values.

This definition  becomes more and more obvious when you look at a company from inside out. A company really is a group of people. And we, like all other companies strive to reach  statistical goals,  similar to game stats: such as net income, revenues, gross margin and the list goes on and on. However we have no stats that measure feelings. Probably it is because feelings are more complicated to measure. It is much easier in our minds to calculate GNP versus GNH.

Imagine for a second that every company is  a dormitory on a huge college campus. The college can easily measure which dormitory has the highest or lowest GPA .  However, only the students know how happy they are in their dorm, or know what parties and people are like in other dorms, or how well they stack up what they have going on in their dorm environment versus what they wish they had in their environment. It would be easy to infer that the dorm with the highest gpa, the happiest students, and other measures you may care for, like athletic residents etc are on the top. It is easy to say that should be the goal to aspire , or, if we could go back to school, this would be the dorm we would be opting for on Freshman Orientation.

What would make this “dream dorm environment” possible?  It is a fairly logical plan. If all the students got along, helped & supported each other, stood by each other, this productive “dream” dorm would be possible.. The biggest obstacle of this type of environment is infighting. As a matter of fact, the higher the percentage of infighting in a dorm, or lack of cohesion, the more discontent the members will be, which will lead to more stress and possibly a declining GPA; people will want to leave. So, the more members of a dorm that get along the better we will inherently be.

What defining “Core Values” does is highlight the values that are living in our dorm. It is how a returning alumni brother or sister will feel just at home at a homecoming event. It is not about grandiose statements of “We will be the best” but more a recognition of what has brought us here so far; what is the only thing which can connect the past successful values with the unknowns of the future. It ought to be what defines us as members of this organization.

Homespice’s Core Values

Here’s what we consider as Homespice’s Core Values:

1. Deliver WOW customer  service
2. Be humble
3. Simple over complex
4. Do more with less
5. Be open minded, creative and adventurous
6. Do the right thing, don’t be evil
7. Create Fun and maybe even a little weirdness
8. Bring passion and be determined
9. Pursue growth and learning

I hope people remember at least half of these and to use all of these as guidelines when facing obstacles, choices or hurdles.

A lot of these are shared by Google, Apple and Zappos. to be honest, I admire these companies and what they have done, not just for the market but what they are experimenting with in their culture and bringing about such awesome places to work. We hope we can only learn more from them.