WorkPuzzle

The Best Places To Launch A Career: Can You Compete? - Part 2

Each of us has either experienced firsthand, or know someone who has experienced a mid-life crisis when it comes to career choice.  We understand the crisis that can result when a person feels that perhaps they've been "stuck" in the wrong job for the last 15 years.  We can even sympathize with the strong urge for a career change that some of us experience after dedicating so many years to a particular field of work.  

In fact, the majority of today's real estate agents have evolved from these types of crises.  Is it possible that you identify with these folks so much, that you've made them the primary, or even exclusive focus of your recruiting efforts?
 
In light of the information revealed by Business Week's recent survey (read Monday's blog for more on this), it seems that we are missing out on an enormous new resource.  Young college graduates are facing a crisis that most people don't have to consider until reaching their mid 40's.  They are leaving college with no prospect of being able to work in their area of specialty.

The good news for you is, they are hungry for a new direction.  Another Business Week article includes several examples of intelligent, motivated, new grads who have had to settle for very low-level jobs. Take for instance, Sasha Muradalih, a University of Miami graduate with a Masters in International Public Relations.  Unable to find a job, she is currently settling for clerical work.  Then there's Stephanie Haller, a graduate of Humboldt State University (BA in Journalism), who is currently Managing a Hollywood Video store.  The list goes on...

The point is this: It might be time to take advantage of this young, educated, and hungry generation, while they're ready and available.  They want to launch new and exciting careers, and many of them will make great agents.  One idea is to create a Manager development track that's more systematic, providing young people from a business/management education, with a vision of where they could be a few years from now. 

What have you got to lose?  Some managers have said it takes too much time to train people who are so young and may not work out.  This could arguably be a complaint about candidates of any age...anyone who doesn't immediately appear self-sufficient.  There is an answer to this:  Numbers!  Increase the number you source, which will increase the number of candidates you interview, which will ultimately increase the number of solid, young people you'll meet... who you know can knock it out of the park!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Best Place To Launch a Career: Can You Compete?

Each year, Business Week conducts a survey of companies and new college graduates to assemble a rank list of the best places for new graduates to begin their careers.  This year’s research involved data from more than 60,000 recent college graduates and more than 60 of the nation’s top universities.

There was some shocking information revealed by the research this year.  For example, of 2009 graduates, only one in five people who applied for a job succeeded in landing one.  And those who were lucky enough to land a job are not getting paid much—it is very difficult to get an entry-level job out of college above $50K in today’s market.  Many jobs on the list begin at $35K or below.

Some industries were hit particularly hard with regard to entry-level hiring:

Hospitality:    -76.3%
Technology:   -55.4%
Transportation:  -41.6%
Investment Banking:  -39.3%
Telecommunications:  -30.8%

These percentages were derived by comparing hiring levels in the first half of 2008 versus the first half of 2009.  The negative values indicate the percentage of decline with regard to hiring in the respective industries.

Does this all add up to doom and gloom for you?  Not necessarily.  If you’re a real estate company (or any small business), that is able to offer a bright young person an opportunity to get ahead, you have a window of opportunity to acquire some very talented, young workers.

In today’s environment, you no longer have to compete with high salaries, signing bonuses, and company-provided meals. Instead, many new workers are realizing that it will take hard work and sacrifice to get ahead.  (As a side note.. Interestingly, Google—famous for providing their employees free meals—did not make the Business Week top 50 this year.) 

One person highlighted in the Business Week feature, an Operations Manager for Nestle, revealed that:

“...he wakes up at 3am to get to work an hour before his 5:15am shift—and often stays late.  He’s a good example of what it takes for young people unaccustomed to drudgery to get ahead these days:  hard work, long hours, and a willingness to make sacrifices.”

With the changes happening in the talent marketplace, here’s an important question to ask yourself:  Is it possible for you to begin competing for the attention of these young, talented employees?

Of course, the traditional wisdom is that a real estate agent needs to be a little older to match the demographics of their buyers and sellers.  While there is some truth in this statement, consider the fact that investment banks, insurance companies, and financial services firms consistently hire college grads, and with great success.  Is there some way you could make this work as well? 

These companies have learned how to grow talent by engaging people at a young age and allowing them to gain experience and build skills on the job.  There are some companies who are already taking advantage of this opportunity.  For example, of the top 50 companies on the Business Week list, the one that has grown college level hiring the most in the last year (up 75% from the previous year) is New York Life.  Their hiring model is not much different than that of real estate, and their compensation scales are among the lowest in the industry.  How are they successful?  Part of the answer is that they are smart enough to put themselves in the right place at the right time!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Sham WOW! Overselling an Employment Opportunity - Part 2

Last week, one of our clients sent me some solicitation information his company had received from an employment assessment company.  The information was a sample report that candidates receive from the assessment vendor upon applying to a given company.

The report is intended to give the candidate some feedback concerning their personality, and some insight regarding their potential for success at the said company.  The report is well done from a graphical perspective.  The assessment results are presented in a box on the upper right hand side in each of four pages, thus the candidate can easily access the information.
 
The problem is that the assessment results boxes are surrounded by a series of testimonials from existing employees.  Most of the testimonial boxes contain pictures of attractive women, and the general theme of each testimonial is that the person found fulfillment in life by working for this company.

I think testimonials are helpful, and one or two might complement this report nicely.  But, this report contains seven testimonials in just four pages!  The testimonials take up as much space on each page as the assessment results, and surround the box that contains the information the candidate is trying to read.

It’s like we’re back at the fair and the “gadget sales guy” is desperately trying to get my attention for a few minutes to make a sale.  The neon lights are flashing as the candidate approaches this employment opportunity.  Naturally, defenses rise under such circumstances, and people become protective.  What is effective in separating a person from the $10 that is in their wallet at the state fair, typically has the opposite effect in an employment dialog.

I know the majority of you are probably not involved in candidate advertising and marketing, but many of you are involved in various other aspects of the hiring process, including prospecting for candidates and conducting interviews.  The same principles apply to these pieces of the hiring process.

Overselling your company and your team will have a very negative effect on your recruiting results.  While most of us can look at an advertisement and tell if something looks gimmicky, it is difficult for many people to realize how their conversations may contain many of the same traits.

Here are some quick questions that you can ask yourself:

1. What percentage of your conversations involve you talking versus the candidate talking?

2. What percentage of your conversation is spent talking about the candidate’s existing organization (or past experiences) versus your organization?

3. What percentage of your conversation do you spend talking about the challenges on your team?  Do you ever talk about how a candidate’s contribution could enhance your team?

I'm sure you can figure out the correct answers to these questions by reflecting back on past interviews, but can you determine if you're doing these things during a live conversation?  The first step is to make an effort to become more aware of what you're saying during a recruiting conversation, and then make adjustments if you find you are overselling.  To follow up, you may want to invite a trusted friend or collegue to attend one of your interviews and then provide you some honest feedback on this topic.  

Believe me, if your recruiting conversations sound like they belong in the gadget barn, better to find out so that you can make some changes.  First impressions can become last impressions if you don't "fix" your approach.

The Talent Sale - Part 2

Yesterday, I described the unusual situation that we are currently in, where top talent is available, marked down, and easy to dislodge.  If you are responsible for hiring, you owe it to yourself, and the company you work for, to spend some time imagining how this works. (Definitely begin be reviewing yesterday's blog.)

Let's say you're single, and you are looking to date someone.  Where's the best environment for this?  Is it among a group of happily married couples, or among a group of singles?  The answer is, of course, obvious.  This may sound like a ridiculous analogy, but it applies to recruiting more than you may think!

To take the analogy further... As far as talented people and their loyalty to their employers goes, we are now in a situation where there have been millions of "divorces" and many considering "divorce."  If you ever want "to date," NOW is the time.  Now is the time when the largest number of people are willing to "play the field."  Don't wait until everyone has already "dated" other industries and "found their match," because the majority of the workforce will likely stick with their new match through several economic cycles before they switch industries again.  This is the time to attract, date, and marry this extremely wide pool of very good prospects.

Continuing the analogy... Most hiring managers restrict their "dating" to only those who actively "flirt" with them.  And we all know, this limits your dating prospects to the most desperate individuals.  And if you limit yourself to those who actively flirt, you'll probably wind up with someone who will flirt with other companies once they're with you!

To win over the best date and best prospects, you must set a goal and not give up.  The most successful daters know that finding a great partner takes tenacity, patience, and a willingness to be rejected.  They know that finding the right person is a numbers game, and by increasing the number of rejections, they'll increase their chances of winning the heart of someone great.

The numbers have never been so much in your favor...  

Top Talent - On Sale NOW!

I'm sure you've all heard the saying "Buy Low/Sell High" when it comes to the stock market.  Isn't it easy to pull the trigger on a hot stock when it's up and everyone is buying it?  And how hard it is to force yourself to buy when a particular stock is low, and nobody wants anything to do with it?  Sadly, this is how most people operate, despite their knowledge that it is a losing strategy.

This same tendency applies to scouting talent:  Hiring Managers are more than willing to recruit and buy top talent at high prices when things are on a roll, but nobody is interested in this venture when the economy is down.  As you might know, we (Tidemark) have become convinced that looking for talent within other industries is always the best way to broaden your net for catching the next wave of talent.  The companies we work for are witnessing this first hand.

There has never been a more opportune time to take advantage of this strategy.  In fact, Dr. John Sullivan recently wrote an article on this very phenomenon titled, Countercyclical Hiring: The Greatest Recruiting Opportunity in the Last 25 Years.  Sullivan believes that timing plays a huge role in a company's potential for recruiting exceptional new talent.  He explains in detail why now is the time to cast that net:

"The Perfect Time for Recruiting

•Competitors are out of the market — almost no one is in the talent market right now.  Most firms have instituted a hiring and/or a budget freeze, which means the competition for talent is ridiculously low.

•High-quality talent is available — in some downturns, only low-quality talent is laid off by corporations.  However, during the current downturn, because of a large number of recent mergers, facility closings, and the complete elimination of some major firms, the amount of extremely high-quality unemployed or underemployed talent available around the world is at an all-time high.  60% of current fully employed top talent are open to new opportunities.

•Costs are low — the lack of competition and the down economy have forced the price of available talent in almost all positions back down to reasonable levels.  New referral approaches and internet and social networking recruiting tools have also reduced the cost of recruiting talent.

•Talent is amenable — the lack of available job opportunities has 'shifted the power' away from talent and toward corporations to the point where top talent will consider job opportunities and options today that they would have rejected as little as two years ago.

•The coming retirement wave — the dramatic reduction in stock prices and 401(k) values has temporarily postponed the upcoming wave of retirements.  Despite this delay, these retirements will come eventually and if the economy turns around suddenly, firms may very soon be faced with a tidal wave of retirements.  Because large-scale retirements may begin in as little as a year or two, now’s the perfect time to 'stockpile' and develop possible replacements for your most experienced managers and technical talent.

•The coming retention problem — if your organization is among the many that have undergone layoffs, frozen hiring, reduced budgets, and maybe even cut salaries through the use of furloughs, the odds are that your current employees are overworked and stressed.  This less-than-perfect treatment coupled with the fact that many of the 'new generation' of employees have little to no loyalty to a single firm will result in a dramatic increase in turnover as soon as more external opportunities begin appearing.  Obviously, you should begin retention efforts immediately but it may not be possible to remove the 'bad taste' that your current employees experienced.  Expand your recruiting efforts to find replacements and realize that new hires are likely to be more loyal than most employees because they are now seeking security and they would certainly remember the fact that you 'saved them' during a period when no one else would even look at their resume."

Those who wait for the economy to improve will, once again, wind up competing with everyone else for the best candidates.  At that point, as I have said before, most people will have already decided where they want to work and will be deeply entrenched, not even willing to consider other options.  At least the best of them will be...  

More About Grit: Predicting and Coaching for Success

In past articles, we’ve highlighted the works of both Dr. Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania; and Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist from Stanford University.  These women are two of the most influencial leaders on the topic of grit.  Both professionals have a passion for researching what, in fact, we should be measuring with regard to propensity for success.

Johan Lehrer puts it this way in his recent article in the Boston Globe:

“One of the main obstacles for scientists trying to document the influence of personality traits on achievement was that the standard definition of traits - attributes such as conscientiousness and extroversion - was rather vague.

Duckworth began wondering if more narrowly defined traits might prove to be more predictive.  She began by focusing on aspects of conscientiousness that have to do with ‘long-term stamina,’ such as maintaining a consistent set of interests, and downplayed aspects of the trait related to short-term self-control, such as staying on a diet.  In other words, a gritty person might occasionally eat too much chocolate cake, but they won’t change careers every year.  ‘Grit is very much about the big picture,’ Duckworth says.  ‘It’s about picking a specific goal off in the distant future and not swerving from it.’"

In essence, Duckworth is suggesting that, rather than IQ level, what we should be measuring is a person’s ability to narrow and maintain focus on a particular goal.  Research confirms that this is a better predictor of a person’s potential than their intelligence and well-rounded background. 

If you’re a hiring manager, think about how you interview candidates...  Would this be a trait that you could measure during an interview by changing the types of questions you ask?  If so, you’d probably be more successful at predicting your prospective employee's potential in your organization.

If you’re in a coaching role, you can also take advantage of the research in this area:

“While Duckworth and others are quick to point out that there is no secret recipe for increasing grit - 'We’ve only started to study this, so it’s too soon to begin planning interventions,' she cautions - there’s a growing consensus on what successful interventions might look like.

One of the most important elements is teaching kids that talent takes time to develop, and requires continuous effort.  Dweck refers to this as a 'growth mindset.'  She compares this view with the 'fixed mindset,' the belief that achievement results from abilities we are born with.  'A child with the fixed mindset is much more likely to give up when they encounter a challenging obstacle, like algebra, since they assume that they’re just not up to the task,' says Dweck.

Interestingly, it also appears that praising children for their intelligence can make them less likely to persist in the face of challenges, a crucial element of grit.  For much of the last decade, Dweck and her colleagues have tracked hundreds of fifth-graders in 12 different New York City schools.  The children were randomly assigned to two groups, both of which took an age-appropriate version of the IQ test.  After taking the test, one group was praised for their intelligence - 'You must be smart at this,' the researcher said - while the other group was praised for their effort and told they 'must have worked really hard.'

Dweck then gave the same fifth-graders another test.  This test was designed to be extremely difficult - it was an intelligence test for eighth-graders - but Dweck wanted to see how they would respond to the challenge.  The students who were initially praised for their effort worked hard at figuring out the puzzles.  Kids praised for their smarts, on the other hand, quickly became discouraged.

The final round of intelligence tests was the same difficulty level as the initial test.  The students who had been praised for their effort raised their score, on average, by 30 percent.  This result was even more impressive when compared to the students who had been praised for their intelligence:  their scores on the final test dropped by nearly 20 percent.  A big part of success, Dweck says, stems from our beliefs about what leads to success."

Could this change your perspective on how you coach those on your team?  It is so natural to praise those we coach for their natural abilities.  While this feels natural and right, the research shows it is counterproductive.

It may be better to just let the natural talents speak for themselves, and seek to praise someone for living out their values and displaying positive virtues.  Grit is one of these virtues, but there may be more.  It will be interesting to see what the research unveils in the future...

Why Can't I Shake Anyone Loose Right Now? - Part 2

Yesterday, we discussed the psychological response candidates experience when the economy is unstable.  As previously mentioned, if prospective candidates are in established job situations during a recession, there is a tendency for them to pull back and act conservatively.  This explains why our real estate client is having a difficult time “shaking people loose” from his competitors while the market is in such disarray.

This will remain the reality of recruiting until the economy starts to recover.  As the recovery starts, there will be signs of life that appear in the labor market.  Lou Adler offers further insight into this topic in his recent article:

“As hiring 'green shoots' appear, those who are the most fed up with their current jobs (the least satisfied) will begin to pursue other opportunities.  As these people leave, companies will fill these empty seats, most likely with others, currently fully employed.  Soon these trickles of churn will turn into significant streams of turnover that will be measured in the national labor statistics.  This spike in turnover is an early indicator of an economic recovery.”

There are two sides to the market recovery coin:  The first side is the advantage that can be gained from the renewed energy people will feel as the recession ends. This sense of hope will result in candidates, once again, willing to consider new opportunities.  For some candidates, there is also a sense of throwing off the weight of an organization that has not met their needs beyond stability.

The time to prepare for the upcoming churn is now.  Do you have systems in place to engage people who are willing to talk about new opportunities?  As a hiring manager, are you holding yourself accountable to completing the tasks that are known to produce results?  Are you able to articulate the benefits of being part of your team during a period of recovery?

The flip side of the recovery coin is retention-- the employment churn will run both ways.  If there is penned up angst in other organizations that will soon be released, it’s foolish to believe that there is not some penned up dissatisfaction in your own organization.
  
Now is the time to address these issues as well.  Have you spent time talking with your existing team about what frustrates them in their current situation?  While you may not be able to currently dedicate a lot of resources to solve some of the problems, do your employees know that you have identified the most important issues and have a plan for resolving these issues once resources start to flow again?
 
While we all want to take advantage of Maslow’s Principle of Self-Actualization, it can also be the force that causes your existing organization to suffer.  Don’t miss the opportunity to prepare for the changes that will be here sooner than you expect.

Why Can't I Shake Anyone Loose Right Now?

A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with a real estate executive on the East Coast.  The topic of conversation turned to the difficulty his organization is having in recruiting experienced real estate agents from his competitors.

In the past, this individual had great success recruiting his competitors’ agents.  In addition, he was able to teach his first-line managers to duplicate his accomplishments.  That is, until recently…

As the real estate market initially soured and then remained stagnant in his area, he noticed the recruiting results of his managers start to diminish.  He coached and prodded his managers with little improvement.

Eventually, out of frustration, he picked up the phone and started making recruiting calls on his own, in an effort to determine the source of the problem.  His frustration grew stronger:

“I just can’t seem to shake anyone loose right now!  The agents in our market are just not willing to make a move no matter what you offer them.”

We discussed some strategies for growing his agent base outside of traditional techniques.  All the while, his mounting frustration got me thinking.  Why would agents be less willing to move during difficult times?  Wouldn’t people seek out better opportunities when things are challenging?  Not necessarily.

Lou Adler offers some insight into this topic in a recent article he wrote:

"As part of his ‘Hierarchy of Needs,’ Maslow suggested that while people consistently strive for personal improvement, they become conservative in difficult economic times.  During these periods, trade-offs are made where people protect their assets, including their jobs, avoid any unnecessary risk, and reduce their expenses.  This is why good people, who are fully employed, are reluctant to move during economic slowdowns."

We all know what goes on in a person’s mind, has a profound effect upon his/her actions.  This sense of “hunkering down” is not easy to overcome.  In fact, it may be a waste of time to try to push against this kind of psychological perception.  There is no magic bullet.

Any results that are realized in this kind of environment will be gained through perseverance, grit, and acceptance that the conversion metrics are going to be much lower than they would be during better times.  In other words, to produce the same results you experienced in the past, it is going to take three times the effort!

Here’s the good news:  Things won’t stay this way forever.  Tomorrow, we’ll discuss what to expect when the economy begins to improve and people beginning exploring opportunities once again, and the penned up demand from the last couple of years starts to be released.  These coming changes could have a profound effect on your recruiting and the make-up of your current organization.

Recruiting Is Like Dating

A year and a half ago, I wrote a newsletter article on this subject and received some very positive responses from managers who had tried the approach.  One manager claimed that it was what finally hooked an agent who she had been trying to recruit for years.  Instead of "trying to recruit" like "trying to pick someone up," she simply took the agent out for a glass of wine and listened-- That was it!  The agent called the next day to join her company.

So, I think it would be beneficial to revisit the content of that original letter.  By the way, no matter what business you are in, if you influence people in any way, you can benefit from the following information:

The basics:

Building a pipeline of agent candidates, or recruits of any type, is similar to building a sphere of influence.  You cannot rely on luck or one-time conversations.  You must build rapport with consistent follow-up and lots of attention.

What people need:

Just like people need air to breathe and food to eat, they need acknowledgement and attunement to become attached to a company.  Attunement means “to adjust or accustom your response to become receptive or responsive to someone else.”

For those of you who have ever dated... How many of you like to hear your date drone on and on about themselves without wanting to know anything about you?  We all know that this is a very bad sign.  It really means that the person desires a relationship for the purpose of meeting their own needs, and cares very little about meeting yours. 

Being attuned means that you are interested and curious about the given person.  Being attuned helps build attachment, and attachment leads to hiring and thus, commitment to your organization.

What happens when you treat a person like an object? 

Treating people like an object is never a good idea. People have a sixth sense about this.  If you are interviewing and coaching a person who is fairly desperate for a job, he/she might put up with it for awhile.  But, sooner or later, frustration will set in and he/she will want to leave.  You see, they know that you have no interest in them beyond what they are generating for you and your organization.  BUSTED! – They’ll take the first opportunity to leave.

Solution:

First, examine yourself:  Do you treat those who work for you as objects?  Or, do they know that you are genuinely interested in their growth for their sake, as well as the company's?  If you’re unsure, ask a few people you trust who will give you an honest answer. If you do have this tendency, there is a very simple rule of thumb to apply in every interaction:  Following the tried and true "Golden Rule," ask yourself, “How would I like to be treated if I were in their shoes?” 

Additionally, remember that impatience is the fruit of pride.  Most of us would like others to be patient; We’d like them to be interested in our strengths and how we use them daily; we’d like them to be curious about us as people who have lives outside of the office.

If you want to build an environment of attachment and performance, you need to seriously consider how to shape your own strengths around the above solution.  The challenge is keeping it up after the dating, and during the marriage.

Recruiting With Social Networks (Grab Your Calculator!)

The last couple of days, we’ve spent some time talking about how the dynamics of Facebook are changing.  From a recruiting perspective, these changes may be difficult to leverage in your efforts to source candidates.

However, don’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water...  Social networks (both online and traditional networks), from a word-of-mouth perspective, can be a power component of a sourcing strategy.  More specifically, gaining access to the social networks of your existing employees multiplies your sourcing efforts.

 

EE = (1-N) X (R/P)

I want to point out an article written by Raghav Singh in the Electronic Recruiting Exchange last week.  Singh figured out a way to measure the effectiveness of a hiring manager’s social networking candidate sourcing efforts.

“Like prospectors during the gold rush, recruiters everywhere are flocking to social networks in search of hires.  But like the experience of many during the gold rush, getting results is not easy.  Reaping the benefits of social networking requires engaging with those networks.  There’s plenty being written about how to do so, but to know if what you’re doing is working, consider the following metric:

EE = (1-N) X (R/P)

Where:
EE = Effectiveness of Engagement, expressed as a percentage

Engagement, in this context, means getting ready access to employees’ networks, regardless of the mechanism for doing so.  Virtually 100% of employees have social networks and connect to them using different means (networking sites are not the only way to do so), but only a certain proportion of employees may be willing to give an employer access, by either making the contacts available or agreeing to forward job postings to them.

N = The proportion (%) of employee networks that an employer or recruiter has engaged with.
R = The average number of qualified referrals received per month per employee
P = The average number of postings accepted by employees to their networks per month

So if an employer is engaged with 10% (N) of employees’ social networks, and on average each employee accepts 3 (P) postings per month, and produces 2 (R) qualified referrals:

EE = (1-10%) X (2/3) = 60%

If the same results are achieved by engaging with 50% of employee networks, EE = 33%

Engagement is more effective the larger the number of qualified referrals received for the same proportion of employee networks an employer is engaged with.  However, this is not a bottomless pit.  Research shows that beyond a certain threshold of postings, the volume of qualified referrals starts to flatten out and even reduce.”

Before you gloss over this and nod off like you did in math class, take a minute to plug some of the numbers from your own organization into this formula.  It’s not as hard as it looks.

Try tracking the effectiveness of your engagement (the EE %) over a few months and see what happens.  If the resulting percentage is consistently low, then you are missing a major pool of the most qualified candidates available. 

It should cause you to ask yourself some questions:  Do your existing employees not trust you enough to give you referrals?  Are the job opportunities you’re pitching compelling enough that people would naturally want to share them with others in their network?  Are you afraid to ask your existing employees for their help?

Metrics help illuminate problems and find solutions that are not otherwise obvious.  Get your calculator out and give this a try!