Retail spending in 2011 is up this holiday season and Americans are feeling more confident in the economy.  Which is good news except that as the economy improves, Americans will feel more secure and willing to take a risk by diving back into the job search market voluntarily.  Companies should have been planning for this eventuality but many of which has not.  Harris Interactive  and Cornerstone OnDemand just released a study finding that more than 21 million Americans will change jobs in the next 12 months costing employers a total of more than $2 Trillion.  That, my friends is a lot of zeros.

The survey also includes a telling infographic which is included below.  But before, you scroll down to the infographic, here are some more findings from the survey that may just have senior leaders and front line manager squirming a bit in their seats:

But employers take note: the cause of this exodus – and the solution – may be rooted in the employee performance management process, including the annual performance review ritual that many organizations are going through at this very moment. Cornerstone’s survey reveals that half (50 percent) of employed U.S. adults who have experienced their employer’s review process feel more valued by the company when they receive a performance review that is focused on helping them succeed in their role. However, when describing their job within the past six months:

• Only 37 percent said they’ve been given useful feedback from their manager/employer;

• Only 34 percent indicated that they’ve received training and development to help them better perform their job;

• Only 32 percent said that their performance goals are aligned with their company’s business objectives; and

• Only 20 percent have established career goals with their manager/employer.

Talent Management is terminology that describes the process of employing people, developing their capabilities, utilizing and managing, and compensating their services in tune with the job and the organizational requirement.   Collaboration on the other hand is a process where two or more people work together to realize shared goals.

We all know that employee development and engagement can lead to decreases in employee turnover.  Gallup reports that in 2003, that actively disengaged workforce may cost the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity not to mention the estimated turnover cost of 150% of the annual salary of every open position.

• Develop a Talent and Succession Planning Strategy.  A solid strategy gives your management team a guideline and helps secure the vision.   Consider implementing a robust talent profile strategy to allow internal employees to showcase their skills and their experiences within the organization.  This means talking to your people, learning about their career development interests, and how they see themselves fitting into your company’s culture as well as your team.

• Provide Training to Define Rules & Expectations.  One of the most important ways to provide employees with opportunities to engage, develop, collaborate, and train is to provide a road map for success.  Using employee-training programs during onboarding, quarterly training, or online training tools can help provide candidates insight into the development and leadership process and support the company’s overall mission and message.  Expectations and roles change.  Be clear, upfront, and forthcoming about changes.  Don’t beat around the bush.  Go to bat for your people, and they’ll likely do the same for you.

• Communication.  Communication.  Communication.  Engagement happens only when there is a conversation.  Encourage employee one on ones, skip level meetings or interviews, and messages that encourages conversations among employees, their supervisors, and leaders within an organization.

• Assess company culture and engagement from multiple angles.  Not every employee sees the value that a program, training, or initiative from the same points of view. Our unique perspective is what makes an individual an individual.  Acknowledge that by first working with pilot programs to work out the kinks before your organization launches a full-scale program to change the world.

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to creating an engaged workforce that invokes positivity, creativity, and the spirit of an organization.  What may be more important is your organization’s awareness and recognition in the value of a new program or strategy that encourages collaboration, engagement within your Talent Management and Team Management Strategy.

Photo Credit Idea Champions. 

Talent Management and Your Company

As companies begin to feel the economic recovery effects, it’s not surprising that companies are re-focusing their efforts on talent management strategies, retention, and growth within their organizations. While there is a new renewed focus on talent management in any economy, hopefully your organization has continued to grow, source quality candidates and develop your workforce throughout the company’s own growth cycle.

If not, it’s never too late to consider adding talent management and development strategies and techniques into your already established company review or employee training and development program.

Talent management” is a phrase that was coined in the 1990’s to incorporate the developments of the Human Resources Management field placing a greater focus on the effects HR has on a company’s organizational effectiveness.  Talent management is considered part of the evolution of talent management, candidate pipeline, and succession planning technologies.

Human Resources adds greater value to an organization’s strategic business value through the use of talent intelligence in the form of talent programs, talent management, and talent analytics.  These, combined with a robust Competency Based Management and Development Model, aid in creating a company culture. It creates a company culture that is employee focused, performance based, and passionate about re-recruiting your current workforce.

These distinctive competencies, according to ASTD (American Society for Training and Development), are areas of personal capability that enable people to perform successfully in their jobs by achieving outcomes or completing tasks effectively. A competency can be knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, or personal characteristics. Competencies can be defined for job, business, or management activities.

HR Competencies and How they Benefit Your HR Team

Establish a common language and foundation

Competencies allow for a clear understanding of goals as well as what is expected of employees and leaders within an organization.  This understanding allows for structure that can be communicated to senior leaders and front line employees.

Multi-functional HR Competencies

Competencies can fit large organizations as well as small teams.  Like talent management, competencies can take a business in almost any direction.  Competencies within your organization, division, or small team are not one size fits all.

Establishing Structure and Encouraging Communication

This common language and competency based model generates a baseline that allows for conversations among managers, teams, and leaders to be facilitated.  Competencies provide your teams a map to help guide them to phases of development and talent management goals.

Aligning the Position With Organizational Goals

Competency based job descriptions and performance evaluations create synergy between manager expectations and organizational goals.  Employees see common goals and alignment between their position and their role in the organization.

Photo Credit Phillip Greenspun.  

The economy for some seems to be improving and as a hiring manager or organizational leader.  You may have experienced or participated in employee and corporate layoffs over the last 6-36 months.  Depending on the size of your organization, economic status, and depth of layoff some of your experienced, knowledgeable, and experience employees may have been part of the collateral damage.  Fast forward to now.  Things are better.  Sales are up, and your team is looking at adding positions to the team.  Or maybe as the economy improves, some of your top talent puts in their resignation to test the new economic waters only to change their mind 30 days, 90 days, or even six months later.

Either way, you are faced with the prospect of the rehire.

A rehire, often referred to as a boomerang employee is defined as someone who is returning to work in your organization who has been a former employee in a same or different role.  They left the organization either voluntarily or involuntarily and understand the culture, know the expectations, and are familiar with the environment.

So maybe as the economy has improved, you are eager to add old positions to your team.  These positions could be former talent that you said goodbye to as a result of your restructure.  Or maybe, your employee who left for greener pastures made a mistake.  Depending on your employee rehire policy and your company’s willingness to rehire old talent, you could benefit.

I call this the Jay Leno Effect.

Rehires come in all shapes, sizes, and ages.  Take Jay Leno.  In 2004, NBC brought on Conan O’Brien with the intentions of  replacing Jay Leno as late night show host.  Leno retired as host in 2009 ushering a new era as O’Brien took the lead spot.  Ratings suffered and Leno was effectively rehired into his old position, debuting the new old Late Show in March 2010.

The same holds true for former Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz who returned to lead Starbucks, the struggling coffee house chain in early 2008.  Schultz returned to replace Jim Donald as the head coffee bean.   Upon the head bean’s return organizational changes were made resulting in store closures, layoffs, and product offering changes.  It seems that this boomerang made an impact as sales for Starbucks continue to soar since his return.

So how do you tap into this employee rehire market and do you even want to?  So before, you begin rehiring at random, here are some ideas to capture the heart and mind of your rehire:

• Continue to establish a line of communication. Keep the communication lines open with former employees often referred to as alumni.  This could be through Linked In alumni networks or an alumni newsletter.  Be creative but don’t badger.

• Demonstrate value. This means giving something to your alumni community first that creates value, conversation, and discussion.  Maybe it’s a free resume writing class or webinar.  Create value and put yourself in the shoes of your alumni network.  What’s important to them should be what you’re writing/talking to them about.

• Build a rehire database. Just like a talent pipeline within your organization, your rehire community and database should include ratings, information, and insights from previous managers and management.  Build your most wanted list and target your must hires and re-hires.

Photo Credit AAA Caricatures.

Job Candidates, Employment Offers, Retention Strategies and Letters of Rejection

Earlier this week, a good friend of mine interviewed for an HR Director position for a multi-location long-term health care business.  It was Tammy’s second job interview, and when I talked to her she felt positive about her chances of employment.  She even inquired confidently about next steps and the time line for the decision making process.  The management team assured her that they were still in the beginning of the final decision making process with no concrete decision deadline.

And yet they weren’t completely honest.

The Ultimate Interview Rejection Letter

Less than twenty-four hours later, Tammy walked to her mailbox and was surprised to receive a standard form   letter of rejection  addressed to her from said company.  And while I applaud the company for getting back to her after the interview at all since 50% of companies admittedly don’t engage candidates in any form, the rejection latter  was a slap in the face.

I call tactics like these candidate anti-engagement strategies.  These are seen as a snub in the face of the candidatewho are treated as second class citizens who are the junk mail of the employment and applicant tracking world.  Companies are conflicted and uncomfortable to deliver bad news to job applicants, so instead they employ a common managerial tactic — avoidance, aloofness, and unavailability.  You know what I mean — ring twice and go to voice mai. Or, as in Tammy’s case, send the standard employment rejection letter.  And it’s treatment like this that leads candidates to fill the grapevine with candidate experiences that are angry, bitter, and hurt.  This anti-engagement strategy leaves the candidate with one too many unanswered questions and lots of material to vent to other future candidates

Poor retention strategies are similar to that sales person who I contact asking them for a quote on marketing materials.  We chat for a few minutes, promise to return my calls, and I never hear from them again.  Except I’m the one paying the marketing company and the job candidates are the ones receiving payment.  It’s like dropping off my dry cleaning never to pick it up.

Reject Qualified Employment Candidates with Continued Engagement, Not Cold Rejection

Tammy is more than qualified to be the senior human resource position at the company in question.  Often times in situations like this where there are multiple candidates who meet the minimum qualifications, it comes down to subjectives like culture fit, personality, and gut feelings.  So why do these intangibles give us an excuse to treat our remaining employment candidates like second class citizens?

Companies should be building relationships with their employment candidates regardless of their status.  It’s piss poor customer service, an anti-engagement strategy that eventually will lead to a company with egg on their face.

For every candidate, hired or not, companies should always:

• Send an email at minimum. Failing to do so is like going on a first date and then never calling back.  It’s rude and ridiculous.
• Provide your candidates job search resources. Want to build a community that supports you even if they don’t land the job?  Provide them with resources like a job seeker toolkit or a best practices check list. (See my Job Search Jump Start Guide for an example.)
• Keep your promises. If you promise to follow up, then do it.  It could be in the form of an automated email sent directly from your ATS or a quick phone call.  The things that we avoid are often the most important.
• Treat your job candidates like human beings. Because they are and they deserve to be treated as such.  Showing some basic human decency shouldn’t be the minimum expectation.  Imagine how impressive you’d look in the eyes of the candidateeven as they read your letter of rejection.  Rockstar company. . . with very little effort.

If you are a corporate recruiter, hiring manager, or human resource professional, I know what you are saying,  “Jessica, I get 500 applications for one single job.  I don’t possibly have time.”  And to you I call bullshit.  Providing your candidates an engaging experience doesn’t to be time consuming.  It is in fact just good business.

It’s Not Employee Retention, it’s Good Will Retention; Avoid the Venting

With the economy improving good candidates will once again be in short supply.  Older workers are counting the days and months till their retirement, but the younger workforce are like elephants — they never forget.  Treating your candidates like second class citizens may not hurt you today, but it will in the future, and with sites like Glassdoor, JobVent, and the SimplyHired Forum, it’s really only a matter of time.

Never heard of Glassdoor, JobVent, or Simply Hired?  Here are a list of more employment venting sites to get you started. Want to know more about candidate engagement?  Kevin Wheeler (@kwheeler) has a great article from 2008 on ERE.

Think I’m full of crap or maybe you agree with me?  I encourage you to leave a comment below.

Photo Credit Business Week.

What is Zero Unemployment?  I don’t get it.

Zero Unemployment is a numerical and mathematical improbability.  It just can’t happen.  A quick Google search finds economists and college case studies and papers.  And yet you may find yourself on the Zero Unemployment Facebook Page or visiting the @zeroue or the #zeroue Twitter stream.

Zero Unemployment is a movement to generate a conversation started by my friend, Jerome Ternynck, Founder and CEO of Smart Recruiters.  I was introduced to Jerome earlier this year.  He’s smart, funny, and someone who has big, big goals and ideas to change the world.  As someone who works in the HR/Recruiting Industry I was intrigued and #zeroue was born.

Zero Unemployment is a conversation about the hiring process and practices of companies.  Why is it so hard to find good talent when April unemployment sits at 9%?  What are the fundamental flaws with recruiting as a process?  And what can we do to change it?

Zero Unemployment is right up my ally.  This site (Blogging4Jobs) was initially created as a tool to make my hiring process easier as a corporate recruiter and human resource professional.  I believed that by providing tips and tricks to the job seeker about why they didn’t get the job, I would make my hiring process easier.  Candidates would come to me instead of me coming to them.  And they did.  Between 2007-2009 30% of my candidates came from social media where I built relationships and had direct contact with my talent pools and communities.  My candidates from social media had longer tenure and performed better.  Even before I teamed up with Jerome earlier this year, I was an advocate for Zero Unemployment.

The idea of Zero Unemployment isn’t just a conversation for Recruiting or even HR.  It’s a discussion, a debate, and a dialogue that should come from the lips of every US CEO and leadership team.  Why and how is there a war for talent when job seekers are in large supply?

Basic economics tells us that about the laws of supply and demand.  As demand increases supply decreases.  Except this doesn’t hold true for our current hiring practices and country’s job growth patterns.  Zero Unemployment is a platform and tool to generate discussion in the corporate board rooms and water coolers of America.

If you could change one thing about the hiring process for the better, what would you do?

Photo Credit bnet.