Talent Management

HR Basics, Talent Management

How To Get the Most Out of Your New Hires From Day One

by on May 9, 2012, 11:37 AM  |  3 Comments
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Many companies struggle with designing the right programs to effectively orient employees to the many facets of their roles.

Follow these tips, and you’ll be armed with actionable strategies to obtain the peak performance you desire and deserve, straight out of the gate.

Start the process before Day One

Day One can be overwhelming for new hires and a waste of your time and theirs if you’re not prepared for them.

Contact your new hires prior to day one to communicate what they can expect on the first day. If possible, have them come into the office in advance to cover guidelines, fill out the necessary HR paperwork, and get set up with IT. This way, the first day isn’t filled with unnecessary down time and waiting. By getting them set up ahead of time, you establish respect for everyone’s time. Read more…

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Talent Management

Building Talent Intelligence: The Secret Formula for Competitive Advantage

by on May 9, 2012, 9:28 AM  |  No comments yet
business-impact

The digitized workplace is like a giant data buffet. Applications, chat platforms, social networks, email – it creates an endless smorgasbord of talent-related information.

HR may be hungry for it all, but successful companies are especially good at digesting it.

So says a new study from Taleo Research and the Human Capital Institute titled The Business Impact of Talent Intelligence. Based on surveys of more than 600 global organizations, the report shows how companies that make strategic use of workforce data also happen to do a great job of satisfying the demands of their management. Read more…

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Talent Management

Increasing Employee Engagement: You Must Give First, Then Receive

by on May 9, 2012, 7:20 AM  |  3 Comments
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First of two parts

In his EO Alchemy 2011 talk, Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action reported the response he received during his interviews with members of the U.S. Marine Corps about what made it such a remarkable organization.

He said one succinct response summed up the ethos best: “Officers eat last.”

Sinek went on to say: “If you want your employees to be completely devoted to you and your cause, you need to be completely devoted to them.”

His observation reminded me of the many conversations I’ve had with frustrated leaders who wondered why their employees didn’t seem to care. It reminded me of Human Resource professionals asking for tips on improving employee engagement. Read more…

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Recruiting and Staffing, Talent Management

Another Example of Why Managers Miss the Boat on Employee Engagement

by on May 8, 2012, 1:11 PM  |  2 Comments
miss-the-boat1

Sometimes, I scratch my head at the really dumb things that so many otherwise smart managers decide to do — especially when it comes to the topic of employee engagement.

Here’s what I’m talking about: This week I was reading a story in The Wall Street Journal about how many former employees of MF Global Holdings Ltd. are scrambling to find new jobs after the collapse and bankruptcy of the securities firm. It’s a sad tale, of course, and one that we have all heard many times since the financial crisis of 2008 ushered in the Great Recession, but not a great surprise.

What was more startling — to me at least — was this part of The Journal story that talked about how some of the more senior former MF Global Holdings employees were struggling to find work. Read more…

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Rewards & Recognition, Talent Management

The Key to Motivation: Constant, Consistent Managerial Communication

by on May 8, 2012, 8:32 AM  |  No comments yet
Photo illustration by Dreamstime.

A recent post in the Great Leadership blog on “The Top 5 Mistakes Leaders Make” is my inspiration for today’s post. I agree with post author Beth Armknecht Miller and appreciate the attention she has called to managerial focus, communication, feedback, goal-setting and motivation.

So much of “good management” falls out of a leader’s ability to consistently, constantly communicate well with members of their teams.

Just this weekend I heard an interesting statistic that in a mere 72 hours you will forget 95 percent of what you hear today. It’s a natural defense mechanism of your brain to parse and “save” only the information it deems most necessary for survival.

In the workplace, that’s unacceptable, of course. Managers cannot rely on “I told you that last week” as reason enough to expect employees to remember and correctly implement instructions given. Read more…

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HR News & Trends, Talent Management

Interns: They’re Always a Mixed Bag – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

by on May 7, 2012, 12:30 PM  |  No comments yet
interns-wanted

Leave it to The New York Times to ferret out the dirty little secret of unpaid internships: sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad, and sometimes, they are a complete and total waste of time.

Raise your hand if comes as a huge shock and surprise.

There was a bit of a news wrinkle in The Times story — that because of the economy and a lack of jobs, more college graduates are going the unpaid internship route immediately upon graduation — but the rest of it, was, well, what you have probably heard and maybe even experienced before. Read more…

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Talent Management

Young Workers Need to Up their Quid to Get the Quo

by on May 7, 2012, 8:35 AM  |  1 comment
The recession has changed the attitude of many members of the Millennial generation when it comes to work.

Quid pro quo (from the Latin meaning “this for that”) is a commonly used term in business negotiations. It’s also the foundation of every employer/employee relationship.

To illustrate, let’s say the quid represents the compensation an employer is willing to part with in exchange for labor they need to operate their business. The quo, then, represents the amount of work an individual agrees to provide in exchange for an agreed compensation.

Our free market economy serves as the fulcrum of the employment teeter-totter. When the economy is brisk, it’s often marked by a labor shortage forcing employers to ante up more quid for the quo they need. When the economy falters, job seekers outnumber opportunities enabling employers to increase the quo for their quid, or to cut back on the quid without affecting the quo they’re receiving. Read more…

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Talent Management

Will They Stay or Will They Go? In This Economy, That’s Up To You

by on May 3, 2012, 10:04 AM  |  2 Comments
Illustration by istockphoto.com

When accounting for the costs (both real costs, such as time taken to select and recruit a replacement, and also opportunity costs, such as lost productivity), the cost of employee turnover to for-profit organizations has been estimated to be up to 150 percent of the employees’ compensation package.

Can you afford that?

The U.S. economy is slowly improving. This is a good thing for companies and job seekers alike, though it’s also positive news for employees – employees who may have felt over worked and under-appreciated during the downturn.

Should you be concerned about retention and loss of employees? Read more…

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HR Management, Talent Management

HR’s Talent Management Dilemma: Balancing the Hourglass Workforce

by on May 1, 2012, 10:35 AM  |  4 Comments
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Over the next 20 years, 81 million Baby Boomers will be exiting the workforce.

Their retirement will leave a void in many organizations. Their skills and experience cannot be replaced easily by the 46 million Gen Xers that will succeed them. Can this looming skills gap be filled by the 85 million hungry Millennials anxious to make their mark in the world?

The Millennial generation (also known as Generation Y) is poised to take on the challenge of a new job, and, with their affinity for technology and networking, they are more adept at developing their career path to getting noticed by employers. However, this energetic, tech savvy age group arguably still lacks valuable work experience necessary to fill the big shoes of the more experienced workers who are fast approaching retirement. Read more…

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Talent Management, Training & Development

Lost Knowledge — “It’s Not About Being Nice to Old People”

by on May 1, 2012, 8:35 AM  |  No comments yet
mentor

Last week in Lost Knowledge — What Are You and Your Organization Doing About It? — we discussed what “lost knowledge” is, its effects on companies, the costs involved, and some scary statistics on retirement.

Today, we’ll talk about what companies are doing about it — how they are passing on know-how. We will see a sample of knowledge retention strategies they are using to prevent employees’ acquired knowledge from walking out the door when they retire.

Here are some practices that companies have adopted to address this challenge: Read more…

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