Foster an environment of Trust

This is the most crucial, and influences everything else. Making sure your work environment trusts and respects your employees will help them feel comfortable enough to believe their insights will be taken seriously. And this extends beyond just when you’re asking them for feedback. Make sure their work is taken seriously and that you trust them to manage their time without constant micromanagement. If employees get the sense that management doesn’t see them as serious professionals, they won’t want to offer their ideas. Treat people to a high standard, and watch them meet it.

Allow for both anonymous and attributed feedback

Not all kinds of feedback is the same. Some is uncomfortable, such as if a boss or supervisor is running things badly and makes people uncomfortable. Other feedback might be a source of pride or excitement for an employee who has come up with a way to improve things around the office. Employees might want credit for something like that, and you’d want to give it, right? Don’t assume that all will be one kind or another. So, if you’re designing feedback processes and forms, structure the attribution of the feedback around the kind of feedback you’re soliciting. We spend a lot of time at Kazi developing our expectations scans to get the right kind of answers from employees. It’s not just as simple as asking “What do you think?” You need to ask well to get useful answers.

Show feedback in action

There’s nothing quite so dispiriting as putting a lot of time and thought into a quality feedback for your employer, and then not seeing anything done about it. And not even a response. It might be the case that not all employee feedback is ready or ripe to be used right away, which is okay. But make sure that once you collect feedback from your employees, you make sure they know you got it, read it and took it seriously. If you’re implementing changes they recommended, let the company know! If you’re putting together a plan based on their ideas, tell them! And even if you can’t do what they said, acknowledge the feedback and help them understand why. Make sure employees understand that feedback is not a one-way process.

Make feedback a regular part of the company

If employees come to understand that their feedback is solicited only when something goes wrong or when upper management got bored for a while, they’re not going to value giving it, and not going to make an effort. This results is demoralized employees, and worthless feedback. Make feedback part of what goes on at the company normally. Maybe something really simple, like a suggestion box? Or yearly feedback meetings? Or regular CEO lunches with employees? There are literally an endless number of ways to integrate feedback into the background of your company. Kazi has developed a number of very effective methods that we’ve helped clients put to use for themselves.

The most important thing about feedback is that your employees understand you take them, and their ideas seriously. That doesn’t mean putting all of them into practice, but it does mean treating the feedback process like you care about it. This starts with the employee environment, and filters all the way through your interactions with them. There are lots of ways to improve the ways you collect and implement feedback, and at Kazi, we’d love to help you work through them. If you’ve got an interest in better employee feedback, drop us a line, and let’s chat!

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The Netflix generation

Just in case you didn’t know: At Kazi, we developed what we call the  “Expectations scan.” This is a kind of twofold questionnaire, with which, companies and talent can make their needs and expectations clear. Our algorithm identifies those two.

Why is this important? “The majority of the audience that is looking for a job today is part of what might be called the ‘Netflix generation’ “, Nikolaas tells Magali De Reu. “They’re not just looking for a salary and that’s it. And that’s not just me saying it. Gartner research has shown that people expect more from their employers these days.”

“Putting employees first shouldn’t be just a PR move.”

Nikolaas correctly points out the issue of “personalization” is currently applied predominantly to customers. Data, data and more data. But what if we applied that same philosophy to employees? “The Netflix Generation wants to be served by their employers,” he says. “That runs from recruitment through to retention. It is more than just a nice PR-talk to boost your employer branding. “

Looking beyond the CEO: Can the workplace offer solace?

The idea that led to the creation of Kazi clearly began with Nikolaas’ own frustrations with the education system. “I really felt like I was banging my head against the wall with no result”, he admits. “I’ve always been an ADHD student – I was not like the other students. Yet I just had to participate in the system like everyone else. No one ever asked me “What do you like? What makes you happy? Once I was on the job market I’ve consistently been incredibly miscast. Was it  my fault – did I not understand what was expected of me? Or were employers not communicating correctly? I don’t know the right answer; I don’t want to point fingers. “

“Learning on the job at the workplace helps make a job understandable and tangible quickly”

Although today Kazi focuses more on reconciling different expectations in the labor market as we find it, each of us at Kazi believes that a drastic change will need to take place in the education system in the longer term. “I am a big believer in workplace learning”, Nikolaas adds. “Today you learn at your school desk, and then you join the labor force with your degree. In the future, with even some movement I see today, companies will become learning places. Employers are going to start giving more education workshops. For example, employers and talent are already growing closer together at an early stage. By adopting this model, the work is made tangible more quickly. “

In the interview, Nikolaas uses an example of someone studying to be a pastry chef. “What would be the best way to keep this student stimulated during training?”, he reflects. “Well, if the student is a talker who loves variation, he is probably going to respond best to a small, artisanal-style bakery where he’ll have a lot of contact with customers. But maybe if he’s quieter, and cares about accuracy and process, he’d be better working in an industrial bakery. This way, students can immediately get in touch with their job. You know, make their education a lot more interesting and enjoyable. “

“Swahili is the only language in the world in which ‘Job’ and ‘Mission’ are the same word, which they call ‘Kazi’ ”

At Kazi we all hope that this word, ‘Kazi’ will become the term that educators and the labor market uses worldwide. In the Swahili language, “Kazi” means both ‘job’ and ‘mission’, That makes it the only language in which those two concepts are joined. I hope that soon, this will be the norm everywhere, that is my Kazi! “

Make it fun, make it tangible

Although Kazi relies on technology to spread these ideas to the public, Nikolaas does not believe that technological innovation will be the cure for everything. “We are all afraid that our jobs will be swept away and that technology will replace us,” he says. “But technology can’t get far just by itself. It’s a team player; it needs to work with people. That’s why I believe that we should blind ourselves to learning as many soft skills as possible, to make sure we remain relevant. It’s important to foster an attitude of continuous learning. “

But how can we set about creating such an atmosphere that encourages this continuous learning? “You’ve got to make it fun, and make it tangible”, he responds. “As I’ve said before, work must be made as concrete and tangible as possible in education. Then it will be fun. “

Nikolaas proudly states that he’s still learning every day as an entrepreneur. And that keeps him sharp. “I know where I want to go,” he says firmly. “Kazi has to connect talent, HR and education back to each other; this was not the case when I was coming up, and I felt the effects of it. And even though I obviously don’t want to fail, if I do, I look to see how I can learn and grow from it. This is how I can build a successful company with my whole team!”

Want to know more? Watch the video (Dutch) below!

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Harnessing the Power of Two

One of the most important processes we share with clients is the importance of having more than just one Human Resources manager. We understand that at most companies, when the top leadership is thinking about priorities, you usually focus on your core competencies, right? Because that’s where most of your activity happens. If you give attention to HR, it’s usually just enough so you think the job gets done. But let us tell you that one People Manager is not sufficient to find and retain the top team you need. One thing we’ve found in our research and experience is the fact that when you have two or more People Managers working on your team, you get more than the sum of the parts.

Team Roles and Work Profiles

Our proprietary expectations scan at Kazi helps create categories for potential job seekers based on their Team Roles and Work Profiles. The first covers what kind of employee the person is – more of an Executor, or a Team Player, for instance. The second covers what this person finds important in his/her work – is (s)he results-driven, or ambitious? We have found this is the most predictable, reliable way to ensure team members are optimally assigned, happy, and productive. But this means that you need at least one People Manager to make assessments about the job seekers, and another to understand and manage your teams internally, to make sure placements are made properly. The Kazi expectations scan can deliver excellent results, but execution is as important as preparations.”Done properly, people management becomes the way your am succeeds, through better recruitment, better personnel oversight, and better retention”

A well-oiled machine

At Kazi, we know that your team is the key to your company’s success. That’s why we’ve devoted so much time, creativity and talent to developing the best possible methods for assessing and placing job seekers and understanding your own team. This is what we call people management. And done properly, it becomes the way your team succeeds, through better recruitment, better personnel oversight, and better retention. Kazi knows that these are the places where you need partners. And that’s why we’re here.

Want to know more about how Kazi can help you? Check out our site!

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