Welcome to the New Year everyone! We ended 2020 with a good few lessons! 2021 brings a fresh start and opportunity to use these lessons and build on them.
2021 brings a new challenge to thrive in our new normal and even in the knowledge that there are uncertain times ahead, we can find safety in the gift of hindsight.
Time to set things right and open a new chapter! Let’s get started together!
You’ll find it helpful to download this helpful tool as you continue to read:
P for: Park It
As excited as we all are to leave 2020 behind us, it is worth the time to stop and take stock of what we experienced. A good way to do this is to set time aside to reflect purposefully about:
- What happened and didn’t?
- Why did things work out this way?
- Take note of lessons – What will we do differently? What will we leave behind?
- Take note of wins – What will we do again? What will we take forward with us?
To “park it”, is to write it down. Writing our answers down gives us the ability to be objective. We can retrieve subconscious thoughts, ideas and beliefs and bring them to the conscious mind, where we can be logical. Take note of which of these thoughts require rewiring and set in place a practical plan to begin to rewire thinking to be more helpful. For example, if you constantly tell yourself that you are not business savvy enough to grow your agency, then that is an unhelpful thought if your goal is to grow your business. A practical plan may be to find a business coach, reflect on your experiences that are relevant to why you can grow an agency or create a morning ritual where you allow for some kind self-talk. Whatever it is, get to the root of it and gain control of your success!!!
This first step is key to taking control and necessary to be truly accountable to our actions and the ultimate win.
P for: Plan
Now it’s time to set the destination and begin to map out your journey. A lesson from 2020, would be to find clarity and certainty in this exercise, but remain agile in your plan. Your plan gives you boundaries to work within and hopefully empowers you to make confident decisions where deviations don’t put you totally off course.
Over decades the SMART principle has been the most tried and tested way to capture your goals clearly and visually.
- S – Specific: Well defined, clear and unambiguous
- M – Measurable: With specific criteria that measure your progress toward the accomplishment of the goal
- A – Attainable: Not impossible to achieve
- R – Relevant: Within reach, realistic, and relevant to your life purpose
- T – Timebound: With a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target date. The purpose is to create urgency.
P is for: Prioritise
“Action expresses priorities.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Once we have captured our 1, 2 or 3 SMART goals, we can begin to prioritise the activities and short term objectives that would need to take place daily to achieve the goal. You may have up to 5 different short terms objectives that are required to achieve each SMART goal.
For example:
| SMART GOAL 1: EXAMPLE | Increase conversion of clients to terms by 10%, by December 2021, through achievement of monthly increments of 1.25% conversion over the next 8 months. | ||||
| Objective: What do we need to achieve? | What is the measure? | Who is accountable? | Who / what resources are required? | When must we achieve this by? | |
| 1 | Develop digital leads campaign to attract new potential clients | Ad words and social media campaign attracting 10 quality leads per month | Marketing Manager | Marketing and Sales Team | 1 March 2021 |
| 2 | Develop a tactical lead follow up campaign to generate quality meetings between recruiter and potential client | Standard email templates and follow up phone call guide | Recruitment Team Leader | Marketing and Sales Team | 5 January 2021 |
| 3 | Train the recruitment team on marketing campaign and tools | Sales Training Assessment Score of 85% achieved | Recruitment Team Leader | Templates, Guide and Sales Training and Assessment Tools | 10 March 2021 |
| 4 | A minimum of 2 new client meetings per recruiter per month | 2 meetings per month | Recruitment Consultant | Recruitment Team Leader, Daily Planning and Activity Reports | Monthly from May to Dec 2021 |
| 5 | Daily coaching conversations with each recruiter | 1 daily activity coaching session per consultant per day | Recruitment Team Leader and Consultant | Daily Calendar and Meeting Minute documents | Daily from Jan to Dec 2021 |
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
― Stephen R. Covey
It is with 100% certainty that we can say there will be sudden changes and distractions that will pull us away from the important things into the urgent. Start the day each day committing to action what is most important and what will yield the biggest return each day.
P is for: Partner
“Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” – Stephen Covey
Find solace in the fact that you don’t have to do any of this alone. As a recruiter, we have seen many of our clients succumb to the reality that they can’t do it all, despite all good intentions of taking recruitment internal. But after much expense and pain, clients come back desperate for recruitment expertise. Of course! Because that is what a recruiter does.
Whilst the recruitment industry generally builds capable people with dynamic skills, it all comes back to what needs to be prioritised.
For example: Of course, a recruiter could task a tech-savvy individual to build their internal software and recruitment system. But, why would they do that when they have other objectives to achieve and they have a knowledgeable partner like Placement Partner, who lives and breathes RTS day in and day out? A recruiter would know that their time, efforts and focus are far more valuable elsewhere.
- Look within the business to find talent and expertise that will complement the goals laid out up above
- Look outside your business for individuals and teams with expertise, knowledge and aligned values to support your daily success
P is for: Praise
We are reading this right? That’s worth celebrating, because it means we not only made it through one of the toughest years in our lifetime, but we managed to muster up the guts to do it all again in 2021!
Our short term objectives give us clear measurable mini-milestones to achieve daily! Every time we achieve a mini-milestone we can take the time to pause, celebrate and perhaps even indulge in some light bragging to mark the achievement. When times are tough it is good to remember our worth, build our confidence and motivate ourselves.
When we accomplish something, it activates the reward centre of our brains and releases feel-good emotions. When this happens we experience the feeling of getting rewarded, and will get us hooked on wanting to achieve more success. It’s a brilliant way to create those helpful subconscious wiring that we spoke about earlier.
Looking to start strong in 2021? Set up your team for collaboration and recruitment success! contact one of our Sales and Training Consultants:
Lezanne, Kathleen, Calvin and Shirley