Tapping Top Talent in a Downturn

HR leaders often are faced with the task of downsizing in one business unit and recruiting highly skilled professionals in another. They have to cope with an exponential increase in applicants for a much smaller number of open jobs, maintain morale in constantly shifting external and internal environments and help their organizations retain key employees. This must be done with reduced recruiting and HR staffs and slashed budgets, at a time when brand image is a critical success factor.

Today, more than ever, organizations must recruit and select the best talent where they have openings and upgrade talent in areas where it will advantage the business. Change in the business environment has happened so fast, many organizations have been slow to adjust and take action. In the current economic climate, it is necessary to take a step back and evaluate workforce plans, as well as talent acquisition processes and enabling technology and determine a strategy that works for the organization in the new recruiting reality.

A Fresh Approach

The biggest mistake an organization can make in this challenging environment is to let down markets drive its vision and shut down recruiting completely. Don't ignore reality. Take a well-planned, creative approach to workforce planning and talent acquisition.

When recruiting departments are faced with more work and fewer resources, build in efficiencies, maximize existing tools, eliminate waste from existing processes, innovate, manage vendor relationships and establish strategic partnerships.

Consider the following steps:

1. Re-evaluate recruitment marketing strategies.
Don't stop running ads and posting jobs, but do be strategic and take a planned approach. The market has shifted from a scarcity to an abundance of candidates in a very short time - adjust accordingly. Don't overspend or spend in the wrong areas. Now is a great time to be out in the market as the competition for talent is much lower. Take advantage of it.

Also, renegotiate existing vendor relationships; don't pay last year's rates this year. There will still be skill shortages and geographic recruiting gaps, so rewrite copy and spruce up the company's look. Speak in a genuine voice for the organization by working with the marketing department.

2. Leverage the hidden gold mine.
Arguably the most commonly overlooked tool in any organization is its existing database. A real gold mine of information, the resumes collected by recruiters and HR staff during the past few years should provide great leads on passive and active candidates. For instance, run a Boolean search on the company's internal ATS database.

3. Improve competitive insight.
Leverage candidate interviews to collect market data on competitors. Actively call leads and network to gain insight into their knowledge about competitors. As talent managers interview candidates from competitors, gather critical information to help position the company to win in the market.

4. Tap the current employee pool.
Take a fresh look at the existing employee pool. Which individuals shine in the downturn? Identify individuals who have been interested in gaining experience in other functional areas and who would be willing to wear two hats during difficult times.

For the right employees, the current climate might provide real opportunities to gain much needed and desired experience in another area. Strong employees will appreciate the opportunity for long-term career growth, and it will show them how much they are valued.

5. Maximize social networking in recruiting.
When used properly, social media networks are an effective tool. The time demand is surprisingly low. If an organization has limited time, choose one or two networks to try. One recommendation is LinkedIn, which is targeted to professionals and requires little maintenance.

6. Automate candidate contact, and employ well-designed self-service.
Tracking down candidates can be time-consuming and frustrating, not to mention costly. Be efficient. One of the easiest solutions is to work with a provider to automate the process. There are myriad tools and software options on the market. The most attractive are those that include auto-scheduling, online minimum qualification screening and telephony/video interviewing platforms. Talent leaders also will want to improve and perhaps automate selection tools to ensure they find those few best needles in the now huge haystack.

Many talent managers can relate to the challenge of responding to the growth in candidate calls to "check status" and a single candidate applying for multiple positions. Turn on auto e-mails. A recent Pinstripe survey showed that less than 20 percent of organizations use that functionality in their ATSs.

Books Are Fun Ltd., a Chicago-based subsidiary of Reader's Digest, and the world's leading display marketer of books and gifts, experienced the benefits of automation firsthand. To meet expansion goals and cover attrition rates, Books Are Fun recruits 250-300 independent sales representatives every year. Before automation, the company's six internal recruiters spent 70 percent of their time screening applicants.

"We knew that the most important part of the recruiting process is the late-stage conversation that we have with a candidate about the job as a lifestyle change rather than just another position," said David Hammond, vice president of sales recruitment. "We needed our internal folks to focus on these late-stage conversations. It was a waste of time for my staff to handle the screening process."

Books Are Fun outsourced the sourcing and screening process to an organization that was able to reduce costs and time to fill by streamlining candidate tracking; managing all recruitment marketing efforts including postings and active and passive candidate sourcing; and accessing additional resources, including community-based recruiting from libraries and organizations, franchise and sales-niche recruiting, various national and regional job boards and TRM contact searches.

7. Find the right candidates from the onset.
Many organizations put too many people through too far in their processes. Design talent acquisition, screening and selection processes carefully and stick with them. Screen people in - and out - early.

"In the past, Books Are Fun offered a contract to the first qualified candidate that appeared. Now we want to offer a contract to the most qualified candidates only," Hammond said. "Our new system generates enough volume of qualified candidates to provide us with real choices."

8. Review the funnel and revise processes.
An organization may have fewer openings, but now there will be more people applying, which will significantly increase the amount of time spent screening and responding to applicants. This can exhaust an HR team, particularly one that recently reduced staff, and could increase effective cost per hire.

Adopt a high-volume recruiting model to process a high volume of candidates in a time of low job requisitions. Technology enables the process in a candidate friendly way. Move online prequalifiers to the top of the funnel, and save the paid online screens and assessments for the spot where the funnel is slimmer.

Books Are Fun revised its process and brought about significant improvements, including a 45 percent decrease in costs, a decrease in time to fill from 52 to 42 days and clear recruiting metrics including weekly summaries, pipeline reports, hiring funnels and detailed process maps.

9. Protect the brand.
When an organization is one of a few that is hiring, and getting 500 resumes for every job posted, process change is necessary. Work with experts to ensure the company doesn't miss good people or alienate future prospects and customers. This is particularly important if an organization is a major consumer brand, and every applicant also is a consumer.

Be polite and respectful every time. Companies are not usually good at this, and HR will find it especially important to partner with marketing and hiring managers when everyone is being asked to do more with less.

Times are tough and the human resources function is on the frontlines of the battle. But remember, every downturn yields winners and losers. Some organizations will not merely weather this storm; they will seize the opportunity to emerge as a more efficient and successful.


[About the Author: Sue Marks is founder and CEO of Pinstripe Inc., an HR and recruitment process outsourcing firm serving large- and middle-market domestic clients, as well as the Global 5000.]

Retention Strategy: Meaningful Motivation

Retaining and developing existing talent can be more important to an organization and less expensive than acquiring new talent.

Unfortunately, even if an organization already is focused on retention, chances are good it is following a misguided and expensive compensation approach. "Misguided" may seem like strong criticism, but while extrinsic rewards of money and benefits may cause a short-term burst of productivity, they often don't motivate. Further, they also contain the seed for demotivation long term because, once compensation is awarded, it becomes expected. So when revenues dictate that bonuses are smaller, people aren't just unmotivated, they are actually demotivated, making them less satisfied overall with their jobs and, subsequently, the organization.

This finding is at the heart of the work of Frederick Herzberg, who is known in organizational development circles as the father of modern motivation. Herzberg didn't say appropriate compensation isn't necessary. It is. In fact, Herzberg found that while the presence of certain basics such as good working conditions and an appropriate salary didn't motivate or increase job satisfaction, their absence contributed significantly to job dissatisfaction.

Herzberg's research makes it clear that monetary rewards don't motivate and don't compensate for ineffective management. Real motivation comes from work in the form of achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement and growth.

Managers can't always change the work itself, but there are practical and simple steps they can take to provide a more motivating workplace and manage in a way that changes the relationships employees have with their work, their managers and their organizations.

Leverage the Power of Human Nature

Humans are natural problem solvers. We like to figure things out and determine how things should be done, especially when we're the ones doing them.

This is why when talent managers give people the opportunity to express their opinions and provide input into work processes, they enhance buy-in and ownership, effectively using human drive to an organization's advantage. People who feel ownership of their work are likely to find that work more meaningful than people who have no say in how things are done.

For example: The next time a talent leader assigns a project, make sure that leader knows that people clearly understand the desired end result and the parameters for the work and also provides the latitude for them to determine how they are going to achieve it. Recognizing this natural human drive to be a part of the solution is a critical first step to motivating people to do their best and enjoy doing it.

Manage Performance and Mentor People

Talent leaders also must recognize this human drive to problem solve in themselves, and then curb it. If a manager is focused on his group's performance, he or she will feel the need to provide answers and solve problems, making employees feel less necessary in the process.

The talent manager's most effective role is to empower and mentor. In this role, the leader will motivate people to do more, and performance will take care of itself. Plus, helping people realize they can perform job tasks with less help enables them grow personally and professionally while making the managers' job that much easier.

When a talent leader is compelled to provide answers, he or she should ask questions instead. Asking good questions is a great way to help people learn to problem solve and make good decisions. It gives people the opportunity to discover the answers for themselves, which gives their work meaning and provides the right environment for sustainable learning, adding to their personal skill set and growth, which also is great for the organization.

Focus on the Person, Not the Job

When talent managers make people feel like they care more about the work than the employees, it can promote feelings of insignificance. Conversely, an employee who feels his manager's concern for his well-being is more likely to experience the trust characteristic of high-performing teams and organizations.

Talent leaders should take time to get to know their employees. This will not only help to build trust, it will provide invaluable insight into what motivates them. Different things motivate different people. One person might be thrilled about new responsibilities as a project manager, while another might experience a greater sense of achievement when allowed to actually produce the desired end product.

In addition to being sensitive to individual role preferences, it pays to note the varying degrees of structure individuals need to be happy in those work roles. Some people need and prefer more direction and clarification than others. This is especially true in ambiguous or uncertain situations.

To assess individual need for structure, ask people to write down questions they have about their jobs. Someone with lots of questions probably needs more structure, while the person who has few questions almost certainly needs less.

Show Up When Things Are Going Well

Being the human problem solvers we are, it's natural for a manager to intervene more often when something is not working than when things are going smoothly. Unfortunately, in this type of environment, employees soon begin to fear every conversation with managers, viewing them as people who show up only when there's a problem.

Brain chemistry research shows this fear of criticism actually triggers the fight-or-flight response, bathing the brain in fear hormones that increase defensive behavior and actually inhibit learning. Talent managers that only talk to employees when something's wrong end up with defensive and withholding employees, and fewer opportunities to uncover the information they need to know about workers and their performance.

To avoid this common scenario, talent leaders should intentionally make time to recognize employees for what is working. Schedule regular meetings where people are invited to report their successes. This structured recognition date will prompt employees to look forward to seeing the talent manager, motivating them to share everything necessary about their performance, as well as how to mentor them and help them achieve even more.

Plus, in the process of learning what's working, the manager also will learn what's not working. But the interaction starts with attention on what the person is doing right, which creates an atmosphere in which people are more open to suggestion and learning can take place.

Publicly Recognize Great Performance

In addition to making time to let employees tout their own achievements in private, public recognition helps to reinforce a sense of accomplishment and accountability. When people are publicly recognized for a job well done, they experience that sense of achievement all over again, which makes them eager to get back to work and tackle the next problem even more skillfully.

When a manager sees good problem solving and decision making, he or she should acknowledge the success privately and in front of others. Timing is important, so don't wait for the annual awards banquet. Making public recognition spontaneous and frequent will motivate everyone, create an environment that supports and encourages ongoing learning, achievement and accountability for all. This motivational culture is good for the employee, the manager and the organization.

But when attempting to recognize and motivate employees to do better work, talent managers should ask: Will my actions contribute to the person's sense of achievement or recognition? Do they fit their individual preferences? Will my actions enable him or her to grow and be prepared to take on more responsibility? Do they make the work more meaningful?

If the answers to any of these questions is no, talent leaders should recognize that while they may make the person feel rewarded for a job well done, they probably won't achieve the long-term motivation they're looking for.


[About the Author: Chris Musselwhile, Ed.D., is president and CEO of Discovery Learning Inc. and author of Dangerous Opportunity: Making Change Work.]

Improving returns on talent

How should companies approach and formulate a talent strategy focused on better returns.

Organisations have worked over the years towards efficiently managing and monitoring returns on capital and assets. This has been an important role for the CEO and top management in years of boom and downturns.

However, there remains a great deal of ambiguity over the idea of managing talent as an asset. While organisations commit huge investments in talent and incur heavy costs on it, rarely do CEOs have visibility on the returns on talent employed (ROTE).

Investments in talent

An organisation makes multiple investments in acquiring and utilising its talent effectively. These are:

Time and effort: The man-hours spent by HR managers and others in an organisation in recruiting and managing talent adds up to quite a lot. And this has a cost attached to it.

Operating costs: The largest human resource costs in a company are in the areas of recruitment, training, staff welfare, travel for HR-related processes and so on.

Overall employee costs: This is an aggregation of cost to the company (compensation and benefits) of all employees. These costs are a part of the profit and loss statement of companies and normally tend to increase over time.

These spends directly hit the bottom line of the company. In times of downturns, organisations look at cutting down these spends to reduce costs. Although obvious and intuitive, this approach to improve ROTE has limited benefits and could prove counterproductive in the long run. Considering that any recessionary or slow growth phase is likely to be followed by a phase of rapid growth and expansion, a reduction in talent investment has to strike a balance between short-term pressures and long-term imperatives.

An alternative approach

Companies’ top management have always, knowingly or unknowingly, strived towards improving returns from talent. Their concern and need is to find more comprehensive ways of doing so. But what comes in the way is the absence of a common understanding of what constitutes talent, what kind of returns to expect and what levers must be used to improve ROTE.

Talent constitutes not merely employee numbers but also their capabilities. Hence, ROTE may be defined as the value gained in terms of contribution to business results through effective utilisation of talent and its capabilities while optimally managing talent costs.

The concept of "talent value chain" provides a comprehensive model to view the processes through which talent is employed and utilised

An organisation’s strategic goals along with a well-defined organisational structure are the starting point of the talent value chain. Each link in the talent value chain is a talent lever. Specific actions and initiatives under these talent levers are identified and planned leading to development of a "talent strategy".

Like business strategy, talent strategy addresses the key challenges a company is facing and hence, necessitates a careful examination of business challenges and objectives. It also needs to be adapted and changed to suit changing business environments and goals. Such a talent strategy ensures optimal and appropriate utilisation of talent and hence leads to an improved ROTE.

However, an appropriate and well-articulated talent strategy is rarely found to exist in organisations and hence improved returns on talent seem to constantly elude them. Let us examine three different business scenarios to illustrate the approach that an organisation can use to develop its talent strategy.

Downturn/low growth: An organisation struggling with a downturn or slow growth in its industry is faced with the challenge of optimally managing its assets and costs. Such an organisation should, therefore, employ its talent levers in a manner such that they address this strategic challenge.

In workforce planning, the organisation’s focus should be on optimal utilisation of talent through re-deployment or reducing existing manpower. Similarly, recruitment should either be frozen or highly selective. High performing, valuable employees should be identified from the less productive ones based on performance differentiation. This would help identify both talent which the company must strive to retain and manpower which can be released without a significant impact on company productivity.

Rewards too can be selective. Only those who contribute significantly should be rewarded. Policies should be reviewed to enhance centralisation, wherever possible. Potential development and retention should be geared towards the best-performing talent. Thus, this approach helps improve ROTE through managing costs, optimal utilisation of talent and high involvement of top management.

Rapid growth: Any organisation operating in an environment of rapid growth will look to capture a large share of business. This obviously translates into a key strategic challenge — talent acquisition and development.

In such a scenario, talent strategy is not so much focused on differentiation, as in a downturn/low growth situation, but on the speed of ramp-up for building employee numbers, their skill development and retention across levels.

Rewards and benefits are liberal and aimed at retaining a large mass of the employee base to maintain high productivity levels and build capacity. High degree of delegation for decision-making is dispersed across the management hierarchy to provide control and authority at key positions in the organisation to facilitate quick turnarounds.

ROTE is enhanced through improved skill base availability, development of skills in line with business requirements, and building and maintaining talent capacity. Hence, the talent strategy and initiatives are geared towards enabling the firm to successfully meet growth targets.

Global expansion: As organisations grow and evolve, they are likely to look at global expansion for higher growth. In such a scenario, strategic objectives change dramatically. This necessitates the redesign of the organisation structure and roles and also needs a drastic shift in talent strategy.

The talent strategy in such a scenario is focused on shifting from known practices to redefining talent practices to make them relevant to a global, geographically dispersed entity. Hence, it will focus on redefining recruitment practices to successfully recruit in new geographies, establishing a new employment brand and company identity, adoption of global practices, global

standardisation of policies and practices and compliance. These become the key areas to improve ROTE in an international, multicultural context.

Formulating a talent strategy

A structured and sound methodology to formulate and deploy a talent strategy is described in figure 2. The initial phase is primarily to understand the strategic objectives and ensure that there is an appropriate organisation structure, with clearly-defined roles, to support the achievement of company goals.

This is followed by an assessment of the processes in each link of the talent value chain. During this phase, a company may discover a complete absence of a process or gaps in the processes. These constitute the areas of improvement or new initiatives which are necessary to achieve company objectives.

These improvement areas/new initiatives are then prioritised depending on the strategic challenges and goals of the company and the presence of supporting systems/processes. This leads to a talent strategy defining specific steps or initiatives along each link of the talent value chain (talent levers). Based on this, a detailed implementation schedule can be developed with specific initiatives and timelines.

This approach, while simple and easily implementable, can provide disproportionate returns on talent employed. It provides a framework that can be used to ensure that an organisation’s talent is aligned towards achieving its strategic objectives. With such alignment, companies can maximise their ROTE in any industry or economic scenario and gain an advantage over their competitors.

Reference: Business Standard ( Article by: Sona Rajesh & Amit Bajpayee)

Talent Acquisition: Quality of Hire and Passive Candidates Reign Supreme

The growing shortage of desired skills is compounded by an increasingly competitive global marketplace and an uncertain economy - all of which combine to force organizations to get more from the same, or less. It's critical that organizations find and lure best-fit talent and increase workforce productivity and retention. While each of these has pre- and post-hire implications, they also can be impacted by an organization's talent acquisition strategy. However, according to recent data from Aberdeen Group, the ability to identify and attract top talent continues to challenge most organizations.

The Shortage and Misalignment of Skills

Aberdeen Group's July benchmark report, "Talent Acquisition Strategies: Employer Branding and Quality of Hire Take Center Stage," revealed the two predominant factors driving talent acquisition at more than 80 percent of organizations surveyed revolves around the competition for skills, the limited supply of skills or both.

In addition to these external pressures, organizations face internal struggles when it comes to effective talent acquisition. Some 46 percent of all organizations - including 56 percent of those that achieved Aberdeen's best-in-class designation (top 20 percent) - cited workforce planning as their top challenge.

The second-highest ranked internal talent acquisition challenge facing best-in-class organizations focuses on the organization's ability to identify, recruit and validate better hires. In fact, 41 percent of best-in-class organizations cite quality of hire as an internal talent acquisition challenge, compared to only 23 percent that rank ability to reach ideal job candidates and time to fill job vacancies as key internal challenges. Laggard organizations (bottom 30 percent) place relatively equal weight on quality of hire, reaching ideal candidates and filling vacancies in a timely fashion.

Best-in-Class Talent Acquisition Strategies

To overcome the aforementioned macro pressures and internal organizational challenges, best-in-class organizations look longer term and focus on enhancing their employer brands, engaging and attracting passive candidates and targeting those who are best fit for their organizations and available job roles.

Best-in-class organizations distinguish themselves in talent acquisition through a mix of processes and technologies that force organizational collaboration, engage existing workers and target their collective efforts on what matters most to the organization. These work collectively to enable best-in-class organizations to achieve extraordinarily average year-over-year performance gains against the key performance indicators.

Key Differentiator: Recruiting Passive Candidates

Aberdeen's research shows talent acquisition in 2009 will be as much internal as it is external to the organization. But both must focus on heightening the organization's employer brand.

Internal strategies will focus on identifying and developing high-potential workers to fill anticipated higher-level vacancies. Best-in-class organizations place greater emphasis on career development, leadership training and flexible work environments to be more attractive to potential hires and more caring of existing staff. Some 68 percent of best-in-class organizations cite promoting career development and professional growth opportunities in recruiting campaigns as a top priority.

Progress against development plans for individuals designated high potential will be measured against the organization's needs to determine if, or when, the position must be filled externally.

External strategies will focus on finding and engaging talented professionals who are not actively seeking new employment. Passive job seekers are not easy to locate, but they represent an important part of a successful talent acquisition strategy. Aberdeen's research found 62 percent of best-in-class organizations are focused on creating or improving a data repository of desirable active and passive job candidates - versus only 46 percent and 35 percent of industry average (middle 50 percent) and laggard companies, respectively.

Whether internally or externally focused, an organization's talent acquisition strategy must create or validate candidates' and employees' perceptions of the organization as a great place to work. Fifty-three percent of best-in-class organizations focus on having corporate marketing and recruiting work together to improve employment branding. An additional 30 percent of best-in-class plan to have this collaboration in place during the next year. The importance of an internal talent acquisition strategy focused on making existing employees feel positive about the organization is highlighted by the following statistics:

a) Employee referrals are cited by all organizations - and 82 percent of best in class - as the top source to find desirable talent.

b) Some 74 percent of best-in-class organizations rank employee contacts and networks in their top three ways to recruit passive candidates, followed by attending conferences, industry events or tradeshows (60 percent) and visiting social networking sites (30 percent).

Best-in-class organizations are more aggressive at communicating job openings and job-role needs to current staff, and 79 percent are more likely to use the corporate Web to showcase the company's culture and opportunities.

Key Differentiator: Collaboration Between Recruiters and Hiring Managers

Collaboration between recruiters and hiring managers is critical to ensure they get the right candidates within an agreed-to time frame. This collaboration is in place at 89 percent of best-in-class organizations, resulting in a mutual understanding of expectations around the process, skills, attributes and attitudes in a desired candidate.

Aberdeen's research revealed a significant disconnect between human resources professionals and the hiring managers they serve. Non-HR managers are more likely than their HR counterparts to rank quality of hire as a critical success metric for talent acquisition. The same data also shows HR professionals are more likely than non-HR managers to rank time to hire as a critical success metric.

While HR and non-HR managers place relatively equal weight on the importance of overall hiring manager satisfaction, the difference in priority they place on quality of hire, quality of candidate and time to fill suggests a lack of understanding on what it takes to satisfy a hiring manager.

The importance of this collaboration is more pronounced when considering that organizations plan to increase hiring managers' involvement in the recruitment process. For example, 48 percent of best-in-class organizations get line managers involved in candidate follow-up calls, but some 75 percent plan to do so within the next year. Only 32 percent of best-in-class organizations train hiring managers on passive recruiting, but an additional 41 percent plan to do so during the next 12 months.

Key Differentiator: Measuring and Validating Quality of Hire

Seventy-four percent of best-in-class organizations said they have an "understanding of which applicant sources provide the best quality job candidates," compared to only 52 percent of lagged organizations.

When asked for the top four indicators their organizations uses to determine quality of hire, best-in-class organizations' responses focused on two areas: how quickly new employees got up to a desired level of competence and how long they lasted in their role during the first 12 months of employment.

To measure the quality of recent hires, organizations need to have processes in place to determine what level of performance the new employee should be at in three-month, six-month and nine-month time frames; to measure the candidate against those milestones; and to evaluate any performance gaps that need to be addressed. How well an organization can measure new hires job performance and use that information to improve the recruiting process plays a major role in a successful talent acquisition program.

Yet, according to Aberdeen's research, organizations ability to clearly articulate what quality of hire actually is still has a long way to go. Research revealed that quality of hire at most organizations is based largely on loose definitions. In fact, establishing "clearly defined metrics pertaining to quality of hire" is the most common plan related to talent acquisition that organizations will put in place in the next 12 months.

Recommendations

1. Gain clarity on skills gaps. Clearly define the common behaviors and skills of the organization's top performers or key contributors. Use this or the organization's core values as a general competency framework to identify skills gaps. This enables an organization to ascertain where gaps can be filled internally and which require more targeted recruiting efforts.

2. Seek feedback. New hires should be interviewed after the job offer to obtain feedback on the recruiting and hiring process. Make improvements as needed.

3. Define success metrics. Clearly defined metrics should be in place to measure the success of talent acquisition efforts. These metrics should be agreed on by HR and hiring managers and should address the organization's specific business issues.

4. Involve hiring managers. Hiring managers and recruiters need to be trained to use new technologies to find passive job candidates. Such workers can be a vital source of talent and expertise but have traditionally been invisible in recruiting efforts.

5. Focus on internal and external employer brand. The entire organization should work together to collectively brand the company a best place to work. Recruiting should be seen as an enterprise-wide function, not the role of human resources.

Ref: Kevin Martin
[About the Author: Kevin Martin is vice president and principal analyst of human capital management for Aberdeen Group.]

Worthy Disabilities!-Recruitment and Retention

Disability has no bearing on individual competence and talent , hence exploring this latent talent pool can make the difference between corporate success and failure...

Key learnings:

• Disability recruitment is an effective talent- recruiting strategy. The threats of dwindling performance or escalating costs are irrelevant
• Reverse recruiting is a logical step towards disability recruitment and hence recruiters have to make a deliberate attempt at it.

Talent is oblivious to caste, creed, gender or state of physical well-being. Hence, it is omnipresent. Because it is not in the traditional "pool" can deprive organisations of the huge talent lying in seemingly less promising pockets.

The disabled section of the worker population represents one such pocket of talent that rarely attracts the attention of talent- seekers. Most talent managers do not even consider the disabled population of workers as a potential source of talent. Therefore a very significant chunk of talent remains underutilised. Increasing evidence on the subject indicates that people with disabilities can be as effective as their physically fit colleagues. Disabilities are extremely job-specific and do not hold universal relevance.

In defence

The case of Northrop Grumman, a Los Angeles-based defence contractor, demonstrates how organisations can benefit from the disabled. Northrop, like other companies did not have a disability recruitment programme . The initiative took off when Karen Stang, an employee at Northrop, recommended a friend's son for a job. His gesture to help a friend's son injured in war proved to be a milestone for the company's employer proposition. The company appreciated Stang's concern and launched "Operation Impact". The initiative was aimed at employing war -wounded soldiers as the company catered catered to the clothing needs of the armed forces. From its initial placement agenda for disabled soldiers, Operation Impact has expanded its horizon and is now seeking disabled workers from all quarters. This has served both the philanthropic as well as the business needs of the organisation.

Northrop Grumman has set an example for other corporates to follow. Stalwarts like General Electric Co and Raytheon Co. have incorporated disability recruitment in corporate recrfuiting strategy. According to Mathew Ross, the human resources chief at XL4 Software Solutions, organisations are on a constant lookout for new and unexplored talent pools. And the disabled segment of worker population remains fairly unexposed . Thus, organisations have to broaden their horizon and take a more open view of bolstering their staff by integrating the unfortunate but extremely talented pool of disabled workers.

It is rather astonishing to see that even the world's most progressive economy. the US, reports an unemployment rate as high as 65 percent among its disabled population. This apart, a survey of employers across the globe revealed that only two percent of the surveyed population mentioned "disabled population" in the category of groups pertaining to the "equal opportunity" rights. The level of awareness and empathy is rather dismal. Therefore organisations have to work towards clearing the misconceptions that people hold about the disabled and treat them like any other source of talent.

A corporate treasure

A survey of employers employing a significant chunk of disabled worker population has shown that the performance output of these workers is the same or better than that of their physically fit colleagues. The issue of inferior performance is a mere hallucination Apart from performance concerns, a few employers also believe that accommodating workers with disabilities can prove to be more expensive for employers. The cost factor, experts say. is a mindset since it does not in effect cost much to accommodate employee disabilities. Employees with disabilities seldom need assistance at the work place. It is only in the case of certain exceptional disabilities or work requirements that call for special provisions on the part of the employer. Hence, both cost and performance concerns hold little relevance in the context of disability recruitment.

For organisations that are pursuing the cause of disability recruitment the concept of "reverse recruitment" is becoming increasingly popular. The term underscores the need to work backwards on the job-talent graph. Typically recruiting managers have a job in mind with a clear set of skills and competencies that are specific to the given job . This job sketch is then used to recruit talent . However in the case of disability recruitment, the job and skills take a backseat and recruiting managers look for a job based on the skills available to them. While the concept of reverse recruiting makes the job more challenging for recruiters as the pressure to recruit "a given skill set " is huge , the task is not as daunting as it sounds. Recruiters need to educate themselves about the need to integrate the disabled worker population into the mainstream and work towards achieving the same.

Disability recruitment needs concerted and well-intended effort on the part of employers. The task is gravely challenging and therefore may be self-limiting in case of small organisations. However, seeking external help from consultants can prove to be a profitable proposition for organisations seeking talent.

Ref: TheManageMentor.

Attracting Top Talent: Do You Have What It Takes?

Today's employees are attracted by a hiring package with both extrinsic (pay and benefits) and intrinsic (motivation, training opportunities, etc.) elements. But does your organization have the right mix?

There's really only one way to find out: Ask them. Hold focus groups or distribute questionnaires to your employees with the purpose of determining what they think of your present pay and benefits program and also the work environment. Which benefits do they rate the highest? Which are least important to them? What do they find most and least desirable about their jobs and the workplace?

Studies have been done by numerous compensation organizations and they have identified the following as the most important benefits:

• RRSP or other matched employee retirement plans
• Dental plan
• Pension plan
• Pay for performance compensation
• Flexible working hours
• Childcare
• Tuition reimbursement

Ideally, say the experts, you should be offering each of these. But if you can't offer them all, determine which you should be offering based upon your employee focus groups and survey findings.

Likewise, examine employees' opinions about their jobs and the workplace. The ideal company offers:

• Job security
• Employee participation in decision-making
• Work/family balance
• Increased employability through training and development opportunities

Of the elements above, which are missing in your organization? If they aren't there, they should be. Whereas the elements in your benefits package most important to your workforce will vary with the nature of the group (e.g., younger employees will be interested in childcare or tuition reimbursement, or funds to finance a new home), all, regardless of their place in their careers, want job security, involvement in decision-making, training opportunities, and time to enjoy their families along with their jobs.

Once you have retooled your package to attract those employees your firm needs, your next step is to determine how to market your revised package. If you have a website, and you are looking for technical people, make sure that you advertise on it. Visit the websites of competitive firms to determine how they use their site to prospect for job candidates. Job search sites should be part of your marketing plans, of course. But you shouldn't limit yourself to them. Don't forget newspaper classifieds.

Classifieds aren't as effective as they once were, especially if you are recruiting from among those who are still employed. But you can increase their usefulness if you highlight in the ad what candidates would find most attractive about the job (e.g., good pay, great benefits, childcare, and employability). Actually, you should do this in all ads you run.

Here's another avenue for marketing your job openings: direct mail.

Send out mailings to those individuals who match the profile of recruits you want. Associations or magazines targeted to your industry or the necessary discipline can provide the mailing list and names of candidates with the general background you want.This provides a new avenue for the top talent you want.

Ref: http://www.hr.com

Economic Slowdown: An opportunity

Economic slowdown is bound to pose some major challenges for corporates, but it does provide some interesting opportunities too, especially from an HR perspective.

Post the meltdown, employee expectations with regards to salary hikes during job changes are bound to mellow down. We already have reports that the average salary jumps during job changes are lowering to levels of 20-25%, down from 35-40%. While salary used to be the key factor for job changes, post the downturn, employees are likely to become wiser and take a more long term perspective when changing jobs. One can sense that job security will hold a more premium position, in the list of priorities, than it has done in the past.

Long Term View

Another fact that the downturn has highlighted is the importance of working in a reputed, professional and values based firm. There are organisations that at the very first hint of hard-ship will retrench employees and we already have enough examples of that. However, in the past, since the economy was booming and nearly all sectors were doing extremely well, even a remote thought to downsize hardly arose in the minds of most companies. More importantly it didn’t occur in the minds of the employees or prospective employees. Hence, since the industry was too bullish, job security was never a key deciding factor for employees when they went looking out for a job.

However, the current situation has made retrenchments a real possibility and we have even had few companies showcasing the same. Hence, in future, I reckon employees are going to lay a premium on the management ethos and culture of the organisation before they make a change. Organisations which are deemed to be employee friendly and having a professional management culture will hold an advantage in hiring talent than the companies which are perceived as more cut throat having a hire and fire culture.

Employer Branding is key

The above factor is hugely advantageous to the reputed professional organisations for attracting talent and it also provides an opportunity to the rest to improve their respective employer branding by working on building a professional work culture and show-casing the same through media, industry bodies, academic institutions etc. Indeed, this provides a very exciting proposition to HR professionals across corporate India. As of now employer branding has not really taken off in corporate India but, hitherto, I do see that in the medium to long term, this aspect will gain prominence and will become a key deliverable for HR professionals.

HR taking charge

Not very long ago corporates were running from pillar to post to hire talent. A high percentage time of HR professionals was devoted to recruitment. Steep growth paths of corporates across sectors left hardly any time for management to develop leadership pipeline to sustain and manage future growth levels. However, the current scenario of lower future growth prospects does provide a good opportunity for corporates to reflect and devote more time and focus on building a healthy leadership pipeline, so come the next phase of high growth, the companies have a strong bench strength to manage the growth trajectory. Now is the time when organisations can really put their might behind developing robust talent management processes in their set-ups. The most effective talent management systems are owned by the top, ably facilitated and supported by HR. However, in the initial stages HR must take the ownership to drive the process, prepare coach and hand-hold senior leadership to lead it while HR eventually acting as a facilitator.

Another key focus area for corporates is going to be increasing employee productivity and efficiencies. The current meltdown provides an opportunity for organisations to ‘review the way they work’. In order to improve efficiencies and productivity to better their top-lines and already stretched bottom lines, companies start exploring innovative ways to improve their systems, optimise costs, decrease inventories, reduce cycle times and introduce great value innovative products. The name of the game is ‘innovation’. HR can play a key role in building an environment and culture of innovation within the organisation.

So, one can see quite a few silver linings, leave alone one, in today’s environment consumed by the dark clouds of gloom and doom. The trick is to start working on these opportunities, so when the next steep growth phase comes, you are right in front of the pack to gain competitive advantage.

Ref: Randeep Sisodia

Is the Talent War Over?

Even in lean times, that elusive top 10 percent is not so easy to come by

By Elliot Clark

Is the war for talent over? Let me help all the doomsayers, naysayers, and soothsayers: No! The war for talent is not over. I have seen this sneaking into the press and economic conversation of late. We have seen more than 10 recessions and one depression in the last century, and during this time the “war” has been building.

Until McKinsey published its seminal study, “The War for Talent,” we had no catchy name for this phenomenon. Throughout the industrialization and the later shift to a service-based economy, specialized skills have been sought after. However, as we face the next recession, rising unemployment levels lead to another round of prediction about a truce in the ongoing battle for the best and the brightest.

To be fair, MBA salary growth has slowed, hiring is soft, and layoff reports mount, but hiring managers, CEOs and CHROs all know that even in an economic downturn, all companies are seeking the top 10 percent of the talent market in any specific job family. Arguably, productivity per employee is more important when the labor force reduces in a company.

The labor market is a cruel example of the march of time and the force of change. Twenty-five years ago, the most advertised job in the U.S. was keypunch operator. As computers shifted away from paper cards, this skill set vanished. Was this an end of the war for talent? No, it was merely a shift into other technology-driven careers.

In this article, we examine the world of pre-employment screening. Are these companies facing hard times as hiring goes soft? Yes, the transaction level will diminish, but their clients will still need to hire and will insist on pre-employment screening as a way to sift through the greater throngs of job seekers and identify the very best. For service-based companies, compensation is the largest line item in the budget, and this is true for some manufacturing companies as well. Pre-employment screening protects your human capital and production capital from the bad actors you may have hired.

Once again, the RPO industry will be affected by the clients’ uncertainty in predicting hiring volumes, but there is no probability that clients will suddenly drop their hiring standards. In fact, those of us who have lived through a recession have learned that hiring managers become pickier in lean times.

In every recession in the past 40 years, large companies shed employees in layoffs. A percentage of these disgorged employees start small businesses that begin to hire available talent. This process, in essence, allows small business to rescue the economy in a way that large companies cannot. The best and the brightest tend to be the business founders and do not reenter the big company labor pool after the recession. It becomes critical for companies to use good performance management and retention techniques to attempt to preserve this layer of talent rather than let it leave. It also becomes imperative following the recession to get as many back into the company as you can afford, identify, and recruit. The boom after a slowdown is always a scramble for that elusive top 10 percent. So, no, the war is still ongoing.

So while the next few quarters may be soft for screening and RPO companies, selectivity never goes away and the competition for the best players will be unabated. The War for Talent, regardless of what you may be hearing, is not ending and it probably never will.

Role-Based Assessment: Thinking Inside the Box

When organizations look to hire, the decision is not just about the right skills for the job anymore; it's also about the right corporate fit. But can an hour-long interview determine whether someone is a good fit? Role-based assessments can reduce guesswork and help minimize the risk associated with hiring by assessing a candidates' softer side.

"I find the traditional recruitment process limiting," said Meena Pak, director of Feme Ltd, one of Europe's leading importers and wholesalers of hair and beauty products. "I mean, how much can we learn in a few hours of meeting a person?

"Despite the best effort made, [it's] difficult to gain an accurate portrayal of an individual in interviews. [Role-based assessment] is unique because it gives a 'whole-istic' approach and assesses not only the individual, but also the context of where they will work and how they can develop.

"This type of assessment can be used for more than just talent acquisition. It's also an apt tool for creating effective teams and identifying high-potential employees. Though they can unveil key personality traits, role-based assessments should be employed with other practices to make sure employees are not pigeonholed, thereby limiting their potential development.

At Allstate, It's All About the Right Fit

While role-based assessments could be utilized for every position, that means a hefty investment if talent managers use industrial/organiza tional psychologists to implement them like Allstate Insurance Co. does. With some 38,000 employees on the books, it's unrealistic to do this type of assessment for every single position.

That's why Allstate researched which roles were most pivotal to its success so the organization could target its investment. After working with Peter Ramstad, formerly of Personnel Decisions International and co-author of Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital, Allstate pinpointed two key sales leadership positions as critical to organizational success.

"We were looking at their ability to drive growth," said Marsha Love Morrow, director of human resources. "Do they have a direct enough connection to our customers through our agencies? Can this particular role have a major impact on our ability to grow? We arrived at the answer, 'yes.' Because of [sales leaders'] ability to lead within a region, they determine whether we are a top player in a particular market.

"To ensure the right candidates are placed into these jobs, Allstate utilizes role-based assessments. The organization's assessment center is based on leadership competencies and uses scenario-based questions in interviews, cognitive tests and work-style inventories. At the end of the assessment, the consultant who manages the process will review the results and furnish a summary report that provides information about the candidate's ability to perform in a given role.

"By doing [this] assessment, you're obtaining observable information about a particular candidate because you're actually seeing how they would perform within a sample scenario or a sample setting," Morrow said. "In an interview, I can ask you the question, and you're going to respond, 'Here's how I think I would perform.' But you're not actually seeing them in a real-time scenario doing a job while faced with interruptions, issues and changing conditions.

"After taking the role-based assessment, internal candidates, even if they didn't get the position, will walk away with a development report that outlines where they need to grow and develop.

"That's a huge benefit for the [internal] candidates," Morrow said. "They come out with a plan that they can sit down with their leader and actually implement, something that will enable them to continue to develop and acquire the skills they need to be a stronger leader."While this process is labor-intensive, Allstate has found it to be a worthwhile investment because it has helped put the right people into the right positions."[This] was a business decision that we made to ensure that we would be able to have people for these roles that were the kind of talent we wanted for the long run - the kind of talent that would help us to be competitive [in] the marketplace not just today, but in the future," Morrow said.

More Than Just a Test

Think of the business as a whole and each team within that business as a moving part. If teams are not functioning effectively, they adversely affect the whole.Organizations need to know which type of individual succeeds in both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Because role-based assessments are a qualitative form of measurement, they can help organizations determine the best fit on both levels.

"With a quantitative assessment, you're going to get how much of something there is," said Dr. Janice Presser, CEO of The Gabriel Institute (TGI), a provider of role-based assessments. "When you're looking at how somebody will fit in [your] organization in terms of what they do [and] how they behave, what you want to know is qualitative."

The 10 roles identified in TGI's assessments are the Founder, the Vision Mover, the Vision Former, the Action Mover, the Action Former, the Explorer, the Watchdog, the Communicator, the Conductor and the Curator.

"You're not putting people in boxes," Presser said. "You're opening up the boxes that people may have felt they were put into and allowing them to grow infinitely in [a] way that's real [and] meaningful to them."When an individual takes one of TGI's assessments, he or she may read a series of movie plots that have different roles. After each plot the individual is asked, "Which role is most like you and which is least like you?" A detailed report is then generated and provided to the hiring manager.

"You assess in order to predict, and you predict in order to control outcome," Presser said. "If you want to control outcome, you need to have people who are flexible, nimble and know how to work off each other. If you can get that, then whatever happens tomorrow, you have an organization that will be able to meet it."

Cathy Scott, president of District Council 47 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), is using TGI's role-based assessment to determine her current employees' roles. Each employee will take the assessment, and once the results come back, Scott will analyze them to determine if there should be some realigning of job tasks.

"I don't think that we're necessarily going to move people totally out of their position[s]," she said. "That would be too traumatizing. People will keep the jobs they have, [but] because there are multiple functions that need to be done in all of those jobs, they may be aligned differently."Once the results are in, Scott said development will be very important, as each employee needs to understand their co-workers' roles and learn the techniques for working with other roles."If you have long-time employees [who] are used to doing things in a certain way, it really takes staff development, the follow up, for them to see the value in doing things in a different way," she explained.

For Pak, who also uses TGI's tools for hiring and developing teams, role-based assessments have been every effective."The profiles of each role within the role-based assessment [are] unique, and learning our preferred method of working gives a different insight to better understand ourselves and each other," she explained."With increased understanding comes respect, and through respect we learn to trust each other, which builds overall faith in the people of the organization and the company itself."

Pak initially had some reservations about this type of assessment. She was concerned it might lead to false assumptions or limit a worker's development. As a result, she has a specific process when hiring that utilizes other measures: study the cover letter, meet the candidate, gather first impressions, interview, administer all internal tests if applicable, send for role-based assessment, relook at candidates and ultimately make a decision.

"I did not wish to pigeonhole or 'box' people in through the use of this method," Pak said. "I make sure I meet an individual before I send them to take the survey, so I can gut-test them first."No assessment is perfect. Role-based assessments must be used with other practices so talent managers have a more well-rounded view of an employee or potential candidate."The biggest pitfall is it's not an exact science," said Russell Klosk, a global talent management and workforce planning expert and the HR line of business leader for RGS Associates, which specializes in land development.

"No single assessment is going to give you [a] full picture into someone's personality and where they fit in your organization. You want to leverage multiple levers. If you become overly reliant on [role-based assessments] , you look past the business strategy as a whole. Just because someone's not a fit doesn't mean you don't need them.

"In addition to using role-based assessments to develop teams and select the right talent, they also can be employed to identify high-potential employees."It's very easy to come up with a performance management system that measures past performance; it's very hard to put the potential equation against that and say who [is] top talent," Klosk said. "Role-based assessment[s] can be used as a tool to help you spot at an earlier point those people who are going to have that potential."

For role-based assessments to be successful, Klosk believes their use must have leadership buy-in. He said talent managers can get that leadership support by gathering business intelligence and establishing a business case to support their use."

Usually, the people who do these kinds of things love talking about them, so just looking at conference presentations and what's being talked about in peer groups is a pretty good reader of where the trends are and a pretty easy place to get data," Klosk said. "Ultimately, the champion can't be the HR person; the champion's got to be someone in either the finance or the operations role."

Ref: Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

Get your networking right!

"It’s not what you know but who you know that makes the difference.” Any job seeker would know that! Networking remains the most effective job-search and self-marketing tool. The US Department of Labour states that only 5 percent of people find jobs through the open job market, while 48 percent, nearly half of all job seekers obtain jobs through referrals. Yet, many approach networking ineptly ruining their chances of being recruited.

“Networking is making links from people we know to people they know, in an organised way, for a specific purpose.” says Donna Fisher. Networking involves making connections, establishing relationships, obtaining referrals and building a support structure for personal and professional success.

Establishing a support network however can be a daunting task and most job seekers falter here. Of late, the process of networking is being packaged as an impersonal and manipulative technique leaving a bad taste with professional recruiters. Consequently, most them have stopped entertaining job seekers.

The problem begins

“Interpersonal relationships are today’s business currency.” Most jobs seekers fail to respond to the opportunity of building relationships. From then on begins the journey downhill! The basic principle of networking is respecting people you would like to network with. Understanding and appreciating the subtle nuances of relationships with regard to different people and the level of familiarity with them comes next.

Such an understanding can be got if the networker observes and understands a few basic networking rules. Networking isn’t a sales transaction, it is a way of building trust in individuals, gaining better visibility about the job market through interactions, gathering information about job vacancies and creating a favourable impression in the mind’s of potential recruiters.

While networking, a jobseeker should make the ‘contacts’ feel they are being heard and respected and that interacting with them is a value addition. Cavette Roberts, founder of the National Speakers Association rightly says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

In the process of networking, communication should be open and informal. Job seekers often commit the mistake of not giving others an opportunity to share their inputs. Talking too much or too little could be disadvantageous. A networker needs to remember that the networking meeting is a favour and he must make the most of it using the best of his interpersonal skills.

What not to do—The great agenda switch approach

Notice how a networker makes a sudden switch in his agenda.

Mehta, a networker requests for a low-stakes meeting over the phone stating that all he wants to do is exchange a few ideas. Once face-to-face with the contact, Mehta throws him off guard by badgering him for employment. Not only does Mehta lose face with the contact but the contact defames him, ruining further employment opportunities.

What to do--The direct approach

When a job seeker disguises the purpose of a meeting, the contact feels manipulated and avoids associating with such jobseekers. Asking a potential employer about a job directly either in writing or verbally is the most appropriate job-search tactic.

A savvy networker uses this approach while dealing with a contact:

“Mr.Tata, several people mention that the start-up of your new division might create a need for someone who can manage a full set of financial and accounting controls. If that’s true, I’d like to express my interest. If my friends have got it wrong and there is no employment prospect, we could informally network to talk about the market for controllers and CFO’s in your region.”

Clarity of purpose

A contact is naturally concerned about why the networker called, how he heard of him, the agenda of the meeting, and whether there are any associated risks. Failing to give contacts a frame of reference that explicitly defines his role is another common mistake networkers make. Networkers should remember to follow up on the contact.

A college student initiated contact with a guest speaker (a professional in the pharmaceutical industry). They kept in touch through the final semester. Even before she graduated she had a high paying job lined up.

Since networking is about people, it is but obvious that the best networking leads will come from people on the field. Networkers though have to be careful about providing authentic referrals and checking the referral’s accuracy. Often networkers use the clout of referrals (“Your friend

Mr. Tata asked me to give you a call.”) to fix meetings. The contact may oblige as a favour to the friend only to realise that the referral provided wrong or inaccurate information.

A networker can shape his presentation by testing a contact’s level of knowledge before or during a meeting. He must provide a clear profile and his objectives.

Clarity of message

What a networker says is as important as how he says it. Hard and soft self-sell techniques that sales personnel use to overcome defenses and objections should be avoided. Over-rehearsing a presentation robs it of its spontaneity giving the impression of made up conversation. A good networker formats his presentation on the three C’s-concise, casual and conversational.

A contact should be allotted ‘talk time’. It is important to be both interested and interesting. Actively listening to the contact gives the networker an insight into his calibre. Body language is vital here. A good networker demonstrates enthusiasm and professionalism at all times.

Networking niceties

A networker should pay attention to the amount of time he requests for the meeting. The meeting should be scheduled to allow sufficient time for covering the agenda without appearing to be rushed or lengthy. A good networker is discreet about his referrals. He doesn’t attribute information to a contact incase disclosure affects the person.

By conveying appreciation and gratitude, a networker leaves a lasting impression with contacts. Thoughtful and considerate networkers gain by creating inexhaustive sources of information, friendly ties and support that help them secure more than just employment.

With communication growing globally, a person’s career network can include people across geographical areas. Also the Internet offers tremendous opportunity for networking. Observing these niceties while networking will help a savvy job seeker.

Ref: TheManageMentor

People Management

People Management

Cut, Yet Keep!Convincing employees to stay despite a bonus cut… ..

Key learnings:

• Prudence has it that even the most stable of organisations take preventive measures to face recession
• Not paying bonus is one such measure

With recession spreading to more and more countries, even the most stable of organisations will have to start taking anticipatory counter-measures. Of course, most of these measures will be in the form of monetary cuts since cost-cutting is taken as a synonym for survival! But if employees see that things are still OK with their company, and that recession will not hit their industry badly, the one thing that they will not graciously accept is being asked to forgo monetary rewards. In other words, they will still expect the annual or festival bonus.

During an economic downturn, smart organisations would rather not pay bonuses than cut training and recruiting budgets. “Once the economy gets back on track, the bonuses can be dished out. But reviving the functions of recruiting and training after a slump is not easy. Therefore, it is in the interest of every organisation to keep these functions going,” says an expert.

This stand may appear logical to business heads, but unfortunately employees suffer from a short-term vision. So how can organisations, which haven’t been hit hard by recession, convince employees that some counter-measures are imperative regardless of how they are doing during a downturn? This week’s mailer attempts to suggest a strategy on that.

Target talent
Not receiving the annual is the first sign of eventual doom, especially in small enterprises. This assumption, even in the worst of economic times can prompt employees to start looking out. One way to curb this is to form a nexus with top performers and employees with large influence circles, and share with them the real reason for holding back on bonus. Convincing this lot that the bonus cut is a temporary and preventive measure should help convey the message to the bottom-line in a more persuasive manner. Employees are likely to say, “So if they can go without the bonus for all they have done, so can we.” They may also think that if top performers are taking a bonus cut and not leaving, then things outside maybe pretty bad!

Being taken into confidence by the management makes the selected few feel special and they do a good job as spokespersons.

Do not compare
The typical approach to sharing the bad news is informing employees how badly the other industries have been hit, while they are still managing to sail. Then employees will ask, “If we are still posting profits then why penalise us for what others are experiencing?” From an employee’s perspective, if the annual bonus is a promised part of his package, then he should be receiving it whenever the organisation records profits.

Rhetorical speeches on how what is happening to others can also happen to us fall on deaf ears. It is not because the employees are unconcerned, only that they fail to appreciate the long-term measures. Therefore, an effective way to get them to see a bonus-cut as a preventive and temporary measure is to communicate the doom side of recession regularly and subtlety.

Newsletters that carry case studies of enterprises being hit by recession, managers referring to how a friend’s company had to layoff employees, C-level executives commenting on the recession in blogs and fewer organisation-sponsored social events should convey the message that all may not be well below the surface. While these efforts should prepare employees not to be shocked when a bonus cut is announced, the green balance sheet should keep them indoors!

Well-structured
The current volatility of the economy should serve as a warning to organisations structuring their bonus packages. In addition to promising realistic bonuses, a prudent move is to share bonuses on a biannual or quarterly basis. Employees who do not receive their Diwali bonus will still look forward to the quarter. Waiting an entire year in the hope of bonus is too long a wait for an employee, especially when the bonus is skipped.

Denying employees their bonus while the going is good is not easy. But with the economy ‘misbehaving’, even the best of businesses have to tread cautiously, and cutting bonuses is a step in that direction.

Ref: TheManageMentor

Four Key Questions Candidates Should Ask Potential Employers

Employer-employee compatibility must be a two-way street for an appointment to be successful over the long-term. To gauge compatibility, candidates should ask potential employers four critical questions during a selection process.

A significantly shrinking talent pool worldwide means that competition is often stiff for organizations trying to identify and retain peak performers. Organizations often invest in testing and assessment programs to ensure that new hires and internal promotions have the right "fit" with the company culture. However, candidates do not always think about whether a company culture is compatible with their own values and professional needs. Employer-employee compatibility must be a two-way street for an appointment to be successful over the long term.

As such, during the selection process candidates should ask potential employers, managers, and peers the following four critical questions:

1. How does this organization listen to employee feedback?Unfortunately many organizations treat employees as nothing more than numbers -- and subservient numbers at that. Consequently, the answer to this question will reveal whether the organization values the wisdom and contributions of its talent pool, engages the employees, and/or instills a sense of company ownership.

2. How does your employee performance evaluation process work?It may surprise you to learn that many companies do not have a `systematic employee appraisal process in place. Therefore, the answer to this question will reveal whether the organization is structured and consistent in its performance expectations. By understanding how your work will be appraised helps to identify clear expectations, which directly feeds the notion of job security, which is a crucial factor to all employees.

3. What opportunities are there for development?Human resource is a concept that does not always have a succinct definition of renewable. By asking this question you are delving into the culture to understand if employees are viewed as investments or merely as replaceable resources. The answer to this question will help you determine if this company will provide you with the necessary tools to progress along your desired career path.

4. How does this organization reward talent?Believe it or not, some companies reward employees who simply maintain the status quo and penalize employees who show initiative and talent. For example, we know of an episode whereby an employee took much time to provide unsolicited but constructive feedback on a piece of marketing material that was full of factual and grammatical errors. Instead of appreciating the employee's efforts in trying to spare the company considerable embarrassment and potential business, the organization largely reacted defensively and stopped including this employee in key interactions. Therefore, this is a potentially challenging question to an interviewer who is also a manager at the hiring company. You will also be able to ascertain how prevalent recognition is within the organization's culture, for example does recognition occur on a weekly, monthly or annual basis. The answer will reveal whether the organization is organized and committed about employee retention and professional development, as well as how it goes about it.

It is also important to note a fifth question for possible consideration: Can employees be themselves at this organization? Sometimes organizations demand that employees conform to management's skewed - or even downright counterproductive - definition of an "ideal employee." With this in mind, the answer to this pointed question will help to reveal management's expectations for employee behavior - that is, whether employees are encouraged to act as company "drones" versus act as individuals with unique personalities and perspectives to be shared and strategically leveraged.

Again, issues with skill set and lack of fit with the company culture are among the top reasons organizations disqualify candidates. Likewise, lack of recognition, advancement and fit with a candidate's value system are among the top reasons why candidates disqualify employers. For this reason, we encourage candidates to conduct due diligence on companies just like employers do with applicants during the recruitment phase.Come to think of it, all organizations should contemplate the four questions above if increasing morale, productivity and profitability are top priorities. A shrinking talent pool means that the onus is now often on companies to convince talented individuals why their time, devotion and energies should be invested in their organization versus their competitors.

Ref: Jim Houran and Whitney Harper

The mad talent hunt- Hunted turning Hunters

In the mad hunt for talent, the hunted are turning hunters. In line with global trends, CEOs and other C-level executives from leading companies are joining headhunting firms. MasterCard south Asia GM Nitin Gupta is the most recent high-profile executive to join high-brow search firm Spencer Stuart, according to sources. He is the second C-level executive hired by Spencer Stuart in the past one year, the other being Akhil Verma, the former CFO and COO of mobile value-added services firm MobiApps.

Other senior industry execs who have made the switch in the past few months are former country head of pharma company Guidant, Atul Khanna, who joined Hunt Partners in Bangalore and Grey Worldwide’s former COO Ashutosh Khanna, who joined leading search firm Korn/Ferry in Mumbai some months back. Arjun Shrivastava, the former marketing director of flavoured beverages at PepsiCo Inc, US and Amitabh Sharma, former COO of Active Private Equity, have both joined Egon Zehnder. The move has been led by the attitudinal shift towards headhunting as the profession has become much more visible, respectable and established than it was ten years ago when the first wave of leading headhunters set office in India.

Compensation is no more an issue either. “Partners in leading executive search companies have the potential to get paid similar or more than existing CEO compensations,” says search firm Korn/Ferry country head Deepak Gupta. Unconfirmed reports suggest that some leading partners of exec search firms have received over Rs 2 crore in bonuses during last year. “I know a partner in a search firm who has taken home as much as Rs 3 crore in bonuses last year,” said a source who did not wish to be named. Bonuses in search firms are paid on the basis of successful completion of searches and client satisfaction. A search firm typically charges one-third of the candidate’s annual compensation package as fee, though this can vary according to the firm’s business model. One -third of this fee is then distributed among the firm’s partners as bonus.

*Ref Economic Times

India Inc.- Do we have the right leadership?

As India Inc is growing, the need for organizations to put the right leaders in place is also increasing. Shortage of top talent coupled with increase in demand for top professionals have pushed companies to take a dual approach: hiring experienced Expatriates and developing in-house talent.

Examples of such changing trends are plenty specially in Retail, Aviation, IT & telecom sectors. A recent research shows India Inc needs 1000 CEO’s across sectors. The ever increasing need for good professionals has led companies to provide learning and development opportunities to talented executives so as to build a pipeline of future leaders. Companies are also putting their middle management cadre on fast growth track and arming them with overseas experience to maintain a healthy pipeline.

Talent acquisition & talent development are not new to India. Citibank, Oberoi, HUL have been talent warehouse for long. However India Inc needs to focus on leadership development as its takes off in its journey of exponential growth globally. The aim is to cultivate a global mindset and learn the international best practices. Today companies like Wipro and Infosys have identified talented executives as future leaders and are mentoring them involving highest level of management.

As more and more Indian companies set off for a global journey and global MNC’s setup their Indian operations, India’s corporate sector is increasingly looking for people with global exposure who can handle the complexities of domestic and international operations.

As companies grow and accumulate a strong and diverse pool of talent, the role of top management executives is going to evolve with equal emphasis on business growth and talent development.

Talent Development

With the increasing strategic importance of attracting talents and transforming those talents into leaders, companies need to equip themselves with an appropriate wealth of knowledge and skills at an international level. As we march forward in the changing world economies those responsible with the task of workforce readiness face a daunting task. The whole portfolio of how to attract and retain employees is now called by a body of knowledge as “Talent Management”

The new age economy, with its paradigm shifts in relation to the human capital, in terms of its acquisition, utilization, development and retention, has placed a heavy demand on today's HR profession. Today HR professionals are expected to comprehend, conceptualize, innovate, implement and sustain relevant strategies and contribute effectively towards giving the company its winning edge. Faced with a tough proposition in attracting and retaining talent, HR heads of companies have started applying what is better known as 'employer branding' strategies.

Talent Management implies recognizing person's inherent skills, traits, personality and offering him a matching job. While there are no magic formulae to manage talent, the trick is to locate it and encourage. Talent management is beneficial to both the organization and the employees.

Essentials of Talent Management
Talent management is the activity of identifying, realizing, and guiding untapped potential in people.
It means nurturing and developing those people identified of having ability and potential and it should form part of any organizations recruitment and retention strategy.
It involves individual and organizations’ development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and maintenance of supportive people oriented organizational culture.

Talent management brings together a number of important human resources and management initiatives. Organizations that, formally decide to manage their talent undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR process. Talent management approach is adopted and focused on coordinating and integrating the following.

Recruitment- ensuring right people ore attracted to the organization.
Retention- developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees.
Employee development- ensuring continuous formal and informal learning and development.

Changing Trends in Recruitments

The increasing globalization of the marketplace combined with an ever increasing shortage of skilled staff and advances in technology have resulted in large scale changes to recruitment practices throughout the world. The recruitment industry is gearing up for these changes by developing strategic alliances and global partnering to ensure access to the best candidates world wide. Talking of the Indian scenario, the following trends are being seen in recruitment:

Outsourcing: In India, the HR processes are being outsourced from more than a decade now. A company may draw required personnel from outsourcing firms. The outsourcing firms help the organisation by the initial screening of the candidates according to the needs of the organisation and creating a suitable pool of talent for the final selection by the organisation. Outsourcing firms develop their human resource pool by employing people for them and make available personnel to various companies as per their needs. In turn, the outsourcing firms or the intermediaries charge a service fees to the client organization.

Talent Poaching: “Buying talent” (rather than developing it) is the latest mantra being followed by the organisations today. Poaching means employing a competent and experienced person already working with another reputed company in the same or different industry; the organisation might be a competitor in the industry. A company can attract talent from another firm by offering attractive pay packages and other terms and conditions, better than the current employer of the candidate. It has become a challenge for human resource managers to face and tackle poaching, as it weakens the competitive strength of the firm.

E-Recruitment: Many big organizations use Internet as a source of recruitment. E- Recruitment is the use of technology to assist the recruitment process. Organizations advertise job vacancies through internet and job seekers send their applications or curriculum vitae i.e. CV through e mail using the Internet. Alternatively job seekers place their CV’s on the various job portals, which can be drawn by prospective employees depending upon their requirements. This reduces the time and cost investment in the recruitment process for the organizations.

Recruitment- Challenges faced

Recruitment is a function which requires business perspective, expertise, ability to find and align the best potential candidate for the organization, marketing & selling skills and intelligence to align the recruitment process for the benefit of the organization. The HR professionals associated with the recruitment function are constantly facing new challenges. The biggest challenge for HR professionals is to attract and recruit the best potential candidate for their organization.
Some of the major challenges faced by the HR professionals are;

Adaptability to globalization: The HR professionals are expected to keep in themselves in tune with the changing times, i.e. the global trends. HR should maintain the timeliness of the process

Lack of motivation: Recruitment is considered to be a thankless process. Even if the organization is faring well, the HR department or professionals are never given the credit for hiring the right professionals.

Process Analysis: The immediacy and speed of the recruitment process are the main concerns of the HR in recruitment. The process should be flexible, adaptive and responsive to the immediate requirements. The recruitment process should also be cost effective.

Strategic prioritization: The emerging new systems are both an opportunity as well as a challenge for the HR professionals. Therefore, reviewing staffing needs and prioritizing the tasks to meet the changes in the market has become a challenge for the recruitment professionals.