Contradicting a 2004 study showing that using the Internet to look for work prolonged unemployment, a new study has found the better job boards, improved site design, and enhanced technology have dramatically improved the job seeker’s ability to identify positions, make application, and secure employment using the Internet. Also noted by the researchers was the percentage growth of unemployed individuals using the Internet—up from 25% in 1998/2000 to 74% in 2008/2009. In addition to the formal services, the Internet was cited as a valuable “networking” tool where the unemployed could communicate with family, friends and professional colleagues, thereby extending the reach of their searches. Enhancements to job site “user friendliness” were also cited as having an impact on their growing popularity.
When I finished my active duty service with the Navy I took a job as a sales representative. The company sent me to a training session with a world renowned sales trainer. During one session he asked us to list the first word that came to mind when we heard the term “salesperson”. We all listed words like “pushy”, “obnoxious”, and “slick”. He told us that if those are the words 95% of the pubic used to describe salespeople we should become the exact opposite and we’d be successful. For me that strategy worked very well.
Employers can apply this lesson after they read the article linked below. Not only does the article list the most hated jobs, it also provides great insight as to what employees hate most about a job. It’s not what you might think!
Today it is the company with the best talent that beats the competition and increases profits. Employers don’t want their top talent hating their jobs. Read the article then be sure your company is doing the opposite!
The link below is to an article in the Wall Street Journal about the President’s jobs bill. It is an excellent overview and every employer should read this. Some key points contained in the jobs plan….
Nothing really addresses the underling cause of current unemployment; the real estate mess. Until real estate, housing in particular, starts to make a comeback we will not see tremendous growth in jobs.
Like a domino effect, the housing crisis has created an access to capital crisis. This was cited in Inc. magazine as the number one reason why small businesses are not hiring in a robust way. According to the article below nothing about capital is addressed in the plan. Small business tax breaks are part of the bill, but they appear to be temporary and most small business owners will take those savings to the bottom line, not necessarily hire people.
A large portion of the plan relies on government sponsored/funded construction projects. While this may offer some temporary unemployment relief for that industry, it is doubtful the Super Committee will spare the axe for these projects.
Read through the article and leave me your thoughts. The comments on the WSJ site are particularly interesting.
Whether it is true or not, this is not something you want employees to say. Often is beyond a company’s power to control how employees feel. However, company’s can avoid creating situations that might cause an employee to think or say this. Companies DO have a great deal of control in which they hire and promote.
In my executive search business we often hear from executives who feel this way. Either they have been passed over for a promotion or they have seen others passed over multiple times. Sometimes their company never considered an insider for an open position. Whatever the reason, these people feel like a commodity instead of a valued contributor. If this kind of perception starts to permeate the workforce the company is doomed – especially now that top talent is harder to find.
There are many reasons why a company would go outside to hire top talent; they don’t have a qualified person internally, they want fresh perspectives, they want competitor intelligence, etc… Hiring outside is expensive, time intensive, and dangerous (see steps 1 & 2)! Often it can be avoided if companies have a career development culture instead of an open seat culture.
Hiring from your current employees only works if you diligently practice Step 3. It also means a huge ROI on your labor expense. When employees believe they have the opportunity to grow and advance they don’t spend time looking elsewhere. When they enjoy a company development program they have greater confidence to take on more responsibility. Employees will take their performance more seriously and pursue self-development agendas. Giving an employee a career is a long-term investment strategy, one that every company must follow.
This is the final installment of the four steps to building a high performance team. Putting these steps into practice will have tremendous impact on company profitability and competitive edge. Don’t wait until your competition has all the top talent, beat them to the best people now!
Make recruiting a process that is structure and tracked
What would you think of a farmer who decided to skip all the plowing and sowing and jump right into harvesting? You’d think the farmer was deluded and crazy? How can a crop be harvested if the seeds were never sown? How can crops grow if the soil isn’t plowed and watered? It would be insanity to think a farmer could go straight to harvest without doing all the things necessary to cultivate their crop.
This is how many organizations approach recruiting. They have a critical opening and suddenly they want to harvest top talent. Like the farmer they too need to cultivate the talent pool and sow their employment brand long before they start to harvest. This means that recruiting has to be a process that is incorporated into the overall company culture . It has to be an ongoing activity that is measured and tuned.
Here are some simple ways high performing organizations sow seeds and cultivate a healthy crop of top talent:
Promote their company as a highly desired place to work
Create relationships with potential employees as early as high school
Advertise their jobs to attract top talent rather than screen out applicants
Profile key jobs
Establish an ongoing relationship with a niche search firm
Of course, there are variables specific to every organization. But the faster companies begin to cultivate their talent pool, the faster they’ll have the right people to hire.
Now that football season is underway we will be hearing a lot about high performance teams. The time, resources, expense, stress, planning, and practice that NFL teams use to build a winning season is frankly amazing. Millions of dollars are on the line. Jobs are on the line. The health of some of the most physically fit athletes in the world is on the line. Teams go to great effort to build a high performance unit to take them to the “big show”.
Businesses have no less at risk than NFL franchises. They might not have the same players or the same resources, but they have to build high performance teams. Fortunately you don’t need the resources of an NFL organization! Here are four easy steps any company can take to get huge pay-offs from their corporate team.
1) Make recruiting a process that is structure and tracked.
2) Be extremely selective with who you hire.
3) Align training with business priorities and coming trends.
4) Give employees a career instead of a job.
Over the next several weeks I’ll expand on each of these steps. In the meantime, start examining the way you attract employees and how you can improve that process. That alone might get you to the playoffs!
I received an email from PayPal a few weeks ago saying my account has been “limited”! Not sure what that meant, I logged into my account to see what was wrong. Three weeks later I still can’t get an answer. They don’t return emails. There “customer service” phone number is buried deep within their website, which tells me they really don’t want you to call. When you get someone on the phone they can’t answer questions. Bottom line – after almost 7 years of patronage, hundreds of transactions, and never any problem I’m still locked out! It is frustrating and unnecessary and I have a low opinion of PayPal. Clearly they could use some customer service lessons.
Companies need to ask themselves if they give good customer service to candidates. Top talent has no patience, and no need, for bad customer service from HR and hiring managers. Do you take days to provide feedback to candidates or recruiters? That’s bad customer service. Are your hiring interviews unstructured and off-the-cuff? That’s bad customer service. Do you treat candidates as a commodity; to be screened out instead of courted? That’s bad customer service.
The same principles that define great customer service should also be incorporated into the hiring process. It is a reflection of a company’s culture and how they value their employees. Top talent is looking for an experience, not a job. Be sure your hiring experience is first class.
In this short video blog I give employers three simple steps to take to attract, develop, and retain top talent in today’s marketplace.
Here’s the article I mentioned in the video: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576385863720618134.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
One of the main concerns for HR executives is how to grow and maintain a high performing workforce with tightening resources. Companies are cautious to add more resources when they often have fewer employees. Corporations that utilize their employees to their fullest potential, will be the ones who succeed during these challenging economic times.
A nationwide recent poll found that only a mere 9% of Americans describe the relationship between employees and company executives/management as “extremely positive,” and 49% described the relationship as “lukewarm.” The remaining employees described the relationship as “negative.” Upon further interviews, only 10% of employees strongly agreed that their companies truly listened and cared about them as individuals. Furthermore, only 9% completely trusted their employers. This disconnect is not solely related to salary and benefits. According to Rick Garlick, Ph.D., Director of Consulting and Strategic Implementation for Maritz Research, “Our research has shown that the extent to which they trusted their leaders to act consistently, were at least twice as important as salary and nearly three times as important as benefits in predicting the state of labor relations.” This simply states that we are dealing with human beings. It is crucial that HR executives are encouraging company leaders to key in on and exemplify caring, trust and consistent actions.
One great way to keep employees satisfied is through recognition. When an employee is singled out for any positive situation, their overall attitude toward their company becomes much more positive. Attitudes in general are contagious. It is so important to keep “positive attitudes” growing and flourishing as often as possible. Another great way to keep employees happy is by including them in the overall company goals. This enables them to feel included in the “bigger picture.” They now feel that they are part of the team! A third way to increase motivation is to have a rewards program. When employees feel they are paid on results, their work will be their best. This ties into the recognition concept mentioned earlier.
Basically, employees want to feel cared about, trusted and consistent. Through recognition, rewards and involving them in company goals are three simple ways to make a positive impact on your team!
Now that the economic recovery seems to be advancing, health care executives have to turn their attention to attracting and retaining professional talent. Many key company employees put off retirement or career transitions until the economy improved. Strategic leaders should ask themselves what steps have they taken to protect and transfer the departing corporate intelligence to new people? What retention strategies are you implementing to avoid loosing even more?
Business and Human Capital pundits hypothesize that in a recession-altered workplace, employees are often adrift, without well-defined roles and accountability or managers who have a grasp on how to actually execute the business leaders key strategies and metrics.
Employers who need to drive more profitability, who need to maintain and sharpen their competitive edge recognize that it will be their people who create the differentiating factor. This is especially true in our global economy. The old way of recruiting people, interviewing, selecting, and retaining doesn’t work any longer. In fact, it turns off the very top talent you seek. Strategic leaders recognize the available workforce will actually shrink by 15% or more over the next 10 years. Companies need to be more careful about who they hire because there will be fewer of them to choose. Talent strategy then becomes a revenue generator. Executives have to take their corporate talent strategy to a new level.
Here are ten ways to supercharge your talent acquisition, selection, and retention strategies:
1. Throw out old job descriptions and create performance profiles for each key contributor role.
2. Benchmark your best performers in each job and create Key Performance Indicators.
3. Re-engineer your interviewing process to ask the RIGHT questions.
4. Make Organizational Development & effective Recruitment a priority.
5. Alter the objectives, roles and accountability of HR Management.
6. Hire the right people who shared common values and purpose.
7. Establish an on-line employment presence flaunting their EVP.
8. Implement a top grading culture.
9. Make rewards personable and customized.
10. Provide employee development, mentoring and coaching for high impact employees.
Don’t waste time; implement some or all of these TODAY. If you haven’t started by now you are already behind.
Posted by Richard Yadon 
