Managing a financial portfolio takes increasing skill, risk tolerance and foresight.  Whether you’re working with a financial advisor or not, active participation is required.  Decisions are not easy but one thing is clear when it comes to good financial planning – diversifying your portfolio is a smart thing to do.  In uncertain times it’s even more important.

Similarities can be drawn between portfolio diversification and designing smart talent strategies to develop a diversified talent portfolio.  Most importantly, it’s the absence of risk that adds risk.  In a financial portfolio, risk avoidance can lead to missing out on significant gains or realizing significant losses.  Taking the time to clarify your goals, be honest about the level of risk your willing to assume, design a diversified portfolio, make ongoing contributions, pursue a long-term strategy, periodically reassess and rebalance the portfolio, and leave room to play (so you can take advantage of interesting opportunities) will help to ensure you realize your financial future and keep you engaged in the journey.

Risk-smart of risk-averse
Now, let’s look at the similarities in how talent strategies are designed.  In an effort to avoid risk, companies make narrowly defined decisions about how, where and when they invest in talent.  Developing clearly stated goals around talent acquisition is often the first obstacle to overcome.  Without an integrated workforce planning capability, decisions are often reactive, expensive, and lead to either not enough of the right talent at the right time or too much of the wrong talent at the wrong time.  But, lets assume there is a workforce plan in place.  Is the plan risk-smart or risk-averse?  Here’s the difference.  A risk-averse plan would identify the talent needed to support attrition, succession planning, growth, reinvestment in existing talent, and decisions around when, where and how to invest in talent acquisition.  If the strategy is progressive, there’s also a talent-pooling component.  Keep in mind that very few organizations pursue this level of strategy and planning.  The risk-averse plan sounds pretty good, right?  So what’s the risk-smart plan? In the risk-averse plan the talent function is doing many of the right things to deliver value to the organization. The key difference?  The risk-smart plan includes a very important distinction – diversification.

Talent portfolio diversification
Identifying a goal for the percent of talent you’ll recruit in to the organization that will come from varied backgrounds, skills, and experiences moves the organization towards a risk-smart talent portfolio.  This same thinking can and should be applied to internal talent movement.  The advantage a risk-smart approach brings to the organization is a subset of Talent who have the potential to bring different perspectives to the business and can help fuel innovation and breakthrough thinking.  Too often, hiring managers and recruiters pursue people who have been in the exact job that is open.  That’s fine, to a point, but often it results in applying the same thinking, which doesn’t always help to inspire new ideas, broaden perspective and drive innovation.  Recall the Einstein quote, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”  By not diversifying the company’s talent portfolio organizations can impede their own progress and assume a riskier trajectory over time in their effort to reduce risk.

Here’s an example from the HR space.  Many technology companies only want to hire HR leaders who have come from technology companies.  The same story can easily play out in healthcare, entertainment, financial services, consumer package goods, retail……get the picture.  The main point is this – someone who has experience in other industries, or even other functional areas, brings a more expansive knowledge-base that results in something many technology companies cherish – innovative practices.  Diversified, creative thinking has often been at the heart of the company’s birth.  Yet at some point they become increasingly risk-averse, especially in HR.  As I’ve heard the “why” described it is often not that different than how other companies would describe their unique challenges.  Will there be an initial learning curve?  Yes! Are there specifics to the business that are unique?  Yes?  But, the right person can get up to speed quickly and new skills can be developed.  Along the way, if the person brings the required leadership skills, has a proven track-record and is a cultural fit, the individual, team and company are transformed and all will benefit.  It’s through this immersion and learning process that amazing things can happen.  New questions are asked.  New insights are made.  New discoveries unfold and new opportunities are identified. Current thinking and processes are challenged.  The world is looked at through a new lens and the opportunity for transformational change is enhanced. Operating in an uncertain world undergoing dramatic change requires a diversified perspective fueled my fresh thinking. Holding on to “what is” while everything around you is changing will not help the organization realize its potential.

Diversifying a talent portfolio requires building strong partnerships and trust with business leaders and the CFO.  Start small and find internal champions.  Help prepare them by developing a strong on-boarding process and immersion to enculturate new talent.  Partner with the CFO to gain support and mitigate risk.  This is one aspect of defining an opportunity cost of talent, which focuses on the benefits derived by the business rather than on expense.  Take the time  to think about talent adjacencies, how to assess experiences that led to differentiated business results, benefits gained through work on special projects, and demonstrated ability to ramp-up quickly.  Each of these are indicators of future potential and can be quite valuable to the overall talent portfolio.  Looking at each of these indicators and then mapping talent to the organization’s cultural will help ensure success.

The end game
What better time than now to think more broadly about talent and begin developing a risk-smart portfolio.  The breadth of talent on the market today and your company’s ability to capture attention and engage a diverse mix of prospects can align more easily than during highly competitive environments.  You’ll also be helping to position your company for long-term success.  Start slow, identify your champions and demonstrate how you’ll support the strategy.  In the end, by being risk-averse there is potentially greater risk in the talent strategy, which ultimately transfers to the business strategy and the organization’s long–term success. After all, is your talent strategy focused solely on today or where the company wants to be tomorrow?

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Last week a group of unique people from the talent space came together for the first Talent Camp to delve into transformational work – building the talent function of the future. I’ll get deeper into the ”work” in the next post but I wanted to share something else remarkable that came out of Talent Camp …… community.  The mission behind Talent Camp was to bring together a group of smart, passionate people and explore what the talent function would look like if the catalyst behind its “new” existence were a business need.  A call to action, if you will, that positions the talent function at the heart of transforming the organization to meet the growing demands presented by the shifts taking place across the business and societal landscapes – driving organizational effectiveness.

The setting on the Oregon Coast was spectacular and a metaphor for our transformational work.  A wave is not independent from the ocean just as the organization cannot be separated from the talent that brings it to life each day to drive its success.  And, the Coast with all of its remarkable elements is in a state of perpetual change and interdependence. Our meeting place, a 4500 sq. ft. beach house, would serve as a place to open minds and facilitate discussion over the course of 2 ½ days.  It would also mean that each of us participating in Talent Camp, who in most cases didn’t know one another, would need to quickly establish a foundation for honest, challenging and meaningful dialogue. We devoted our first evening session to establishing group agreements.  What time would we begin each day? How much personal time was needed / desired?  What was important to each of us in providing an environment that nurtured productive dialogue? What values do we hold around collaboration and communication? And, what would be our comfort level with connecting to the outside world via social media while we were together?  This was not an easy conversation.  Not because the group was reluctant to discuss it but because their hunger to dive head first into our primary discussion was evident and bursting through, so we took a meandering path.  This was time well spent and provided an important foundation that would serve us well over the course of our time together.

What was remarkable was the ease with which the group came together.  Every aspect of what would be necessary to be together for this period of time was met with ease.  Everyone naturally assumed roles as needed to ensure our shared environment was conducive to being together and immersing ourselves in the work we had come together to explore. Our days were long and our formal conversations began at 9 or 10 am and went until 10 pm.  The group’s collective energy created a respectful environment for honest, tough dialogue yet work and play seemed to fuse together as one. We organically found a balance between structure and openness that allowed us to challenge assumptions, wrestle with paradigms, tear things down, and begin again – after all this was transformational work and the path is not linear but an iterative process that unfolds through a process of discovery. People stepped up to lead discussions and everyone stayed engaged and committed to crafting a vision for the future of the talent function, that ultimately led to more questions than answers. There was an ease and a comfort that each person helped to foster through their engagement and persistent commitment to the group dynamics.

Social media played a significant role in how this group came together.  With the exception of two people, who I knew, each connection to people attending Talent Camp began with a relationship that grew out of social networking.  I do believe that the insight we gain through social networking interactions are quite revealing and in this case helped to bring together a unique group who worked collaboratively to advance a critical conversation around the future of the talent function.

Part 2 of Talent Camp will get into our discoveries and outcomes.

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The second Social Recruiting Summit will take place in New York on Monday, Nov. 16th.  If you missed the sold-out  Summit at the Googleplex this summer don’t wait too long to check out the agenda and register.  The Summit topics and conversations will challenge your thinking about recruiting, give you an opportunity to network, learn from recruiting leaders and take away ideas that will help shape your thinking about the future of recruiting…..social recruiting.  Follow Summit happenings on Twitter @socrecruiting and track the conversations through #socialrecruiting.

Here’s a preview of my session and I hope to see you there!
Is social recruiting just another sourcing tool—a way to promote job postings and find potential candidates? Or is it a pathway to building a sustainable talent community and another tipping point in the evolution in recruiting?

The tools we have access to today deliver benefits that you won’t find through other sourcing vehicles. Harnessing the true power of social networking is about active talent communities. Talent communities provide a forum that enhances the relationship between candidates and your brand by inviting talent to engage in conversation rather than transactional activities and messaging.

In this interactive session, we’ll take all 200+ of you and create a massive brainstorming community of our own. We’ll look at community development through the eyes of talent and the organization. By organizing into sub-groups we’ll leverage our collective intellect to tackle key questions and begin shaping a sustainable recruiting strategy.

Some of the questions we’ll address include:

• How can you attract talent to your community, engage them, and give them a reason to keep returning?

• How can talent be inspired to help you grow the network?

• How will you convert a community member to a hire?

• How can your company approach social recruiting to build a sustainable strategy?

• How can the recruiting function create greater value for the organization?

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The growth, adoption, and momentum of social networking over the past 18 months brings another round of significant change for recruiting departments. The first question that needs to be answered is whether or not you believe social networking is all hype or if it will result in lasting change. Then you can answer the question, “If social networking is here to stay, is it right for our organization?”

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How effectively is today’s HR function meeting organizational business needs? How about the individual and collective needs and capability of the organization’s workforce?  How can a global CEO study indicate that Talent is the most critical imperative, ranking high above access to capital, (see pg 24 of the exec summary) and at the same time reports are emerging that upwards of 60% of employees would leave their jobs when the economy improves? Increasingly, Talent is disconnected, underutilized, over managed, dispensable and bored.  And, companies are not realizing the value in their workforce by merely creating a place for work to be done. Where is the excitement around business?  Around new ideas? Innovation?  Collaboration? Competition? How frequently have talented employees left a company to give birth to a successful venture on their own – could the idea not be born internally?  Can we create a true entrepreneurial culture that supports internal incubators and reward innovation? What’s driving the disconnect and when will business get serious about the value to be realized in attracting, engaging and leveraging individual and collective capability?  When will organizations recognize there is greater reward than risk in hiring for potential rather than always hiring to fit the round peg in the round hole and that the same approach applied to successful, innovative business practices can and should be applied to talent practices?

As the ecosystem within which companies operate continues to test and challenge the ability of organizations of all sizes to attract, engage and leverage talent how has the HR function stepped up to lead the way?  Today’s business environment persistently demands more from people and their companies.  What is the new leadership model at the intersection of HR, Talent and business? And, yet, how many companies have truly evolved their internal environments to navigate the waters of the business environment they operate in today and will be faced with tomorrow?  This article from BusinessWeek raises some very relevant questions about R&D.  Where is the relationship between R&D leaders, the HR function, the CFO and CEO to set a vision that prepares for the future?  Any business issue today is also a Talent issue.  How will we create adaptive practices that support continuous evolution that better keep pace with an increasingly shifting world with so much to offer, so many opportunities and filled with so many unique challenges?

The Big What If
I like to ask “what if” questions, a lot! It helps me imagine different realities, explore new possibilities and develop differentiated solutions.  The BIG “what if” question I’ve been tossing around?  Here’s part one – What if the HR function didn’t exist? Lets just imagine this for a minute.  Some how business has been able to survive all these years without an HR function.  New employees were still hired.  Internally, people were paid on time and appropriately.  Employees had access to development opportunities and internal movement happened as needed/desired.  Things just happened, maybe not in an exciting way but we plodded along and managed.  Now, part two – What if the HR function didn’t exist today BUT a business need was identified that recognized there was a synergistic relationship to be leveraged with talent in a way that would drive adaptive business practices. That would drive personal engagement, job satisfaction, creativity, collaboration, innovation and competitive advantages stemming from a talent-centric organization aligned through shared values and a clear vision.

Needless to say, this is a BIG what if!  It’s also a critical question to explore during uncertain times that, to a large degree, has widened the gap between the organization and its current and prospective employees.  The result of which does not look good from any perspective – and certainly not if you gaze into the future and wonder what will be different.

Talent Camp
About a year ago I began kicking around the idea of Talent Camp – bringing together an intimate group of keen minds with a unique orientation and passion for Talent, business and the HR discipline. All things happen for a reason and in this case I’m particularly pleased that circumstances resulted in Talent Camp being a 2009 venture because there are a few people
involved that I didn’t know last year.  On October 18^th, 12 incredible people will come together for 3 1/2 days to explore the BIG “what if”.  Collectively we have more years, depth and breadth of business and HR experience than I can begin to measure.  We also share a strong passion for what could exist at the intersection of talent and business to serve both interests and advance organizational capability and effectiveness.  We’ll be gathering in a 4500 square foot beach house on the Oregon Coast to immerse in a dialogue around our big “what if” question, that will no doubt experience the ebb and flow of progress, frustration, curiosity, pain, breakthroughs and clarity as we craft our talent function vision.

What can you expect out of Talent Camp? Well, that’s something that we’ll be defining while we’re together.  My goal, hope and desire is that we’ll be publishing a collective work outlining the talent function required for business in the 21^st century.

I am so pleased and excited about the incredible collection of people who have committed to join me at Talent Camp.  I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from them and can follow each on Twitter (their names are linked) and look for #TalentCamp to follow the conversation.

Briand DeGroodt
Franny Oxford
Jeff Hunter – see what Jeff has to say about Talent Camp
Joe Gerstandt
Lance Haun
Laurie Ruettimann
Mike Johnson
Ron McManmon
Shauna Moerke
Steve Fogarty – see what Steve has to say about Talent Camp
Suzy Tonini
and me, Susan Burns

More risk exists in standing still than in moving forward. We are the future and its time to craft the vision at the intersection of Talent, HR and Business. Talent Camp!

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Developing a strong, clear, engaging employment brand can be the difference between a whisper getting whipped around in a breeze and a crank-up the volume, highly amplified message, metaphorically speaking, to attract the best talent to your organization.  That doesn’t mean you have to get out the megaphone and scream from the rooftops, but it does mean you need to get better at targeted positioning to catch the attention of prospective talent and move them to action.  EnticeLabs has a technology called TalentSeekr that will help you do just that – without having to grab your megaphone!

I had a chance to talk with Joshua Westover of Entice and Steve Fogarty of adidas about TalentSeekr and Steve’s pilot campaign while we were in Las Vegas last month for the Kennedy Recruitment conference. Here’s their story about TalentSeekr. You can read mine following the video and the last paragraph captures Steve’s results.

What’s your brand story?
Crafting a great brand story begins by knowing your company’s culture, what attracts people to seek employment with you, why people stay with you, and articulating what sets you apart from the competition.  How you engage prospective talent in your brand story occurs through a number of different touch points.  It could be your corporate career site, social networking sites, blogs, job boards, Google Adwords, video, etc.  Even the biggest and best brands need to work harder than ever to keep this a streamlined, efficient process that produces a solid ROI – converting prospects to hires.  The persistent increase in the number of channels that companies need to engage in has made this process not only more complex but more expensive, harder to manage and harder to track.

Once you have your brand story articulated there are four elements that will help your marketing and advertising strategy produce more value: positioning, reach, relevancy, and experience. Positioning is important to make sure your brand will be seen by the talent your trying to attract.  Reach is your ability to expansively target the talent your aiming for – narrow and deep to broad and deep.  Relevancy ensures that your brand is reaching the most interested, best-fit prospects based on skill, interests and work experience.  And, lastly, “experience” is providing a brand experience that results in an emotional connection that moves the prospect to action – expressing interest in your brand and career opportunities.  The ability to break through the environmental noise in order to not only reach the talent you’re company needs but for that talent to take notice and act is where the true value comes in.  Its also one of the most challenging aspects of employment brand advertising.   The days of  jobs, and job seekers, ending up in the classifieds or on a few key job boards are long gone.  Plus, if you want to reach a more passive prospect your going to need a more sophisticated approach to reach them and capture their attention.

How relevant and targeted is your brand strategy?
Through TalentSeekr, EnticeLabs offers a sleek and effective approach to targeted employment brand positioning that provides companies a streamlined, intelligent approach to zero in on the talent their trying to reach.  TalentSeekr applies geographic, contextual, behavioral and social media profile-targeting to deliver the highest ROI on each of your digital campaigns.  By combining these four targeting capabilities, TalentSeekr automatically addresses positioning, reach and relevancy through location, targeted key words and site preferences (think Facebook, LinkedIn, User Groups….).  As Joshua Westover of EnticeLabs says, ” We can get as broad as a nation or as narrow as a building”.  EnticeLabs begins by collecting information from the recruiter about a  job or a job category to develop a highly relevant positioning strategy.  They’ll work with you to understand key markets (talent and geography) and create text, image, picture, video or flash ads that will appeal to passive and active seekers. (examples to the right from an adidas campaign)

Then, TalentSeekr automatically generates an engagement page that serves as a “storyboard” type concept to enhance the prospect’s experience with your company’s brand.  Through the engagement page, TalentSeekr weaves together video, photos, referral capability, and links to your career site, job posting, community interface or any other digital real estate to which you want to drive traffic that results in a valuable employment experience.

Does your candidate experience measure up?
So, sit back and think about this for a minute.  A prospect logs into their gmail account or Facebook profile and sees a highly relevant ad.  They click on the ad and get a cool video and pictures about your company and / or product.  They get information in another panel on the page that talks about your company culture.  Another panel may invite them to join your community.  And, there’s also a job link.  How do you think the prospect is feeling about your company and the career opportunities after that experience?  Probably pretty enticed! (yes, pun intended!)  Don’t get hung up on thinking that you need to go out and produce a professional video.  The more real the video the more effective it is in creating emotional engagement between the prospect and your brand.  Flip cameras are about $100 and create great videos.  Also, chances are that your company has some cool product videos that you could use (like the video used by adidas in their engagement page above).  If the videos are interesting and relevant to the roles your focused on then why not use them?

Are you also beginning to see how TalentSeekr serves as a brand equalizer!  While the graphics here represent adidas, a very well known and respected brand, the more relevant the placement, the better the brand attraction and the stronger the brand engagement experience.  Brands of all sizes can overcome what traditionally has felt like a “big brand” advantage to become equal in appeal and attraction strength.

Is brand intelligence on your side?
TalentSeekr also gets smarter with age. The longer a campaign is run the more data TalentSeekr has to refine your positioning, ensuring that your receiving the highest ROI.  While TalentSeekr can be applied successfully to specific jobs it’s even more effective if you think of job categories and integrate your marketing strategy with a talent pipelining or community building strategy.  Think about the power of this integrated with your talent planning strategy and CRM tool! Through the Talent Seekr dashboard (below) you can track the effectiveness of your campaigns.  TalentSeekr automatically reallocate advertising dollars so the brand placements that are driving the best traffic (not just volume but relevant traffic) will receive more impressions and in the end you’ll have a highly relevant pool of prospects and a data set that will inform future campaigns.  You can also work closely with the EnticeLabs team and play a more active role in how ad placements are reallocated.

(Dashboard shows sample data for demonstrations only)

In the first campaign Steve ran through TalentSeekr for adidas they focused on a very difficult to fill position.  In fact, it was a position that in the past had required outsourcing to executive search.  Within two weeks adidas had attracted a number of highly relevant, top quality candidates and converted one to a hire and filled the position.  The prospect adidas hired had seen the ad on their Gmail page and was so taken by the experience and highly relevant content they were blown away.  Relevancy rules!

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The ability for companies to move quickly is more important than ever before.  Change is constant. Uncertainty is a reality.  Complexity is on the increase, and the need for agility is rising as a core organizational competency.  We’re living in a new business environment being shaped by shifting talent patterns, increased competition, shorter business maturity cycles and lower barriers to entry, just to name a few.  These are the elements shaping today’s and tomorrow’s business ecosystem and your organizational talent capability.  Your organization’s ability to shape an adaptive talent strategy and proactively develop response capability will allow you to harness these influencers and gain the upper-hand.

 An adaptive talent strategy provides you with an architecture to meet the evolving needs of business and develop a value-oriented talent function. Complex? Actually, it’s simpler and more streamlined than what you may have today. Expensive? Developing an adaptive talent strategy is more cost-effective than not developing one. Will it mean we’ll have to change how we do things? Oh, yes! But, what doesn’t require change? The cost of “standing still” or not adapting may be less expensive in the short-run but over the long-term the cost of not adapting will cost you considerably more, and quite possible even the survival of your talent function or organization.  And, more often than not, change is good.  The hardest thing about dealing with change is getting over the initial shock that you need to change.  Once your open to new ideas and new ways of thinking an entirely new set of possibilities emerges.

 Adaptive talent strategies are based on alignment and clarity around the organization’s strategic business directives.  They succeed when there is active dialogue between the business units, finance and talent acquisition leaders during the strategic business planning process.  In too many instances, recruiting becomes a just-behind process. If the talent acquisition leader is not part of the business planning discussion then the organization is already at a disadvantage and successful implementation of the business strategy is compromised. Now, granted, its up to the talent acquisition leader to ask the right questions and then develop an effective plan to ensure support and success.  The key here is involving talent acquisition early enough in the conversation to shift from reactive tactics to value-oriented strategy development and implementation.  When the talent acquisition leader has sufficient information early enough in the planning process they’re able to effectively allocate resources, structure their team, make investment decisions, and guide the company’s strategic directives by providing critical insight into the availability of talent.  This conversation becomes the pivotal point in developing an adaptive talent strategy. From here, the company can benefit from increased clarity. 

Three other key components that shape developing an adaptive talent strategy -  

Know the talent you have
Visibility into the company’s existing workforce should be easily accessible for the recruiting function.  Knowing where the strengths, weaknesses and gaps exist informs external recruitment. When the talent acquisition leader has this information they can more effectively develop a recruitment strategy and direct resources by partnering with their organizational development peer to identify the key skills and competencies needed to support the organization. An internal talent management system can deliver a number of benefits.  It brings efficiency to the talent planning process and facilitates the movement of talent throughout the organization to meet the needs of employees and businesses.  If employees know they have opportunities to pursue elsewhere in the organization chances are your going to improve retention. External recruitment should always be informed by the internal gaps and talent plans to make smarter investments and decisions when pursuing new talent.

 Develop a talent plan
Clarity around workforce structure guides how the organization shapes thinking about talent today and in the future?  Which roles need to sit in a specific geographic location and where do you have flexibility to pursue the best talent regardless of location? Where can you infuse elasticity in your workforce through part-time, contingent and job share roles? When do you build and when do you “buy” talent? How do you broaden reach by identifying where work can be done outside the organization and engage collective collaboration to generate ideas and drive innovation?  What is your plan for knowledge transfer? How will you prepare for a maturing workforce with different needs? What does the supply and demand look like for the talent you need to support the strategic business directives? For which functional areas and roles do you have a recruiting core competency and where will you outsource recruitment to a third-party? These are just a few of the key questions that should be asked in developing a talent plan to guide recruitment.  Without having clarity around these types of questions and the resulting impact on your organization, chances are you’ll experience significant talent pain points over time rather than operating as an adaptive, value-oriented talent function. 

Leverage technology
In addition to an internal talent management system, a CRM tools is a key component to building an effective suite of recruiting technology solutions.  The CRM serves a number of critical needs.  It supports the recruitment function’s ability to manage communications, build relationships, integrate state-of-the art sourcing capability and provide visibility into the readiness of your talent pipeline.  This last benefit, visibility into the readiness of your talent pipeline, is key to supporting an adaptive talent strategy.  You’ll be able to provide better guidance to the business partners and make smarter decisions around how and where you allocate resources to external recruitment.  The Reports screenshot to the right, courtesy of Avature, provides an example of the benefits gained when you have visibility into your talent pipeline.  You know the readiness of talent and the depth of your pool by type of talent needed.

This will begin to provide you with an idea of what shapes an adaptive talent strategy.  The benefit to the organization is enhanced support of the strategic business directives by improving alignment, opening up an active dialogue early enough in the planning process, and anticipating the types of talent needed.  The benefit to the talent function is improved clarity around strategic business directives, the ability to be more planful in developing and implementing a supporting strategy, and the ability to deliver greater value to the organization. The ROI can be significant. You’ll realize the benefits of reduced third-party recruitment fees, reduced time-to-hire, increased recruiter productivity, reduced marketing / job posting costs, and increased efficiency in the movement of internal talent. The remaining elements  - employment brand and networks, metrics, and internal communication will be covered soon.  You might also want to take a look at the model on the home page to get a visual image of the framework for an adaptive talent strategy.

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I had an opportunity to sit down with Peter Clayton while we were attending the ERE Expo this past March.  We talked about a variety of trends and events influencing the talent landscape, including:

• business cycles and their impact on talent management
• talent leaders and the C-suite
• internal talent management
• community and social media
• generations
• developing an integrated brand strategy
• talent planning
• mind shifts and transformation
• caring for talent

Just a few of the things I’m passionate about!  Visit Peter’s site to listen to our discussion. You’ll also find interviews with leaders from a variety of disciplines across the talent industry.

Curios about Peter’s title for our interview?  Here’s a glimpse into what we were up to at the Future of Talent Booth as covered by HRMarketer.

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The idea of a community manager isn’t unique to the recruiting function. The term is borrowed from the consumer world and emerged with the influence social media is exerting on brand engagement and reputation. While the role is still relatively new, companies have begun to realize the potential to attract, engage, nurture, retain and expand their customer / client base beyond traditional marketing and PR. Its about creating brand value through experiential engagement and listening rather than talking to nurture conversations and relationships. In a connected, multi-channel world, staying relevant requires new thinking and developing the skill to engage people in conversations is one way to accomplish differentiation.

The same is true in recruitment. The role of a community manager is not only important but one any company interested in developing an adaptive recruitment strategy should consider. The community manager is at the center of success for any social recruiting strategy that aims to move beyond “socializing job openings”, which isn’t sustainable and isn’t where the value lies in social media. Requirements of the role also address a new set of skills and competencies for successful recruiting strategies. As we experience rapid advancement and expansion of the channels, applications, tools and technology available to attract and engage prospective talent, the structure and competencies of the talent function need to evolve as well. It is possible to apply social networking for recruiting and even enjoy some success without a community manager. However, if you want to develop a sustainable and integrated social media and networking component as part of the company’s talent strategy, a dedicated community manager role is what you need. There are a number of ways to approach developing and integrating this role depending on company size, budget and hiring objectives. Before we get into the specifics of structure lets look a little deeper into why the role is important and the value it presents.

The dynamics and operating environment of today’s recruiting function is significantly more complex than even two years ago. Over the past 10 or so years complexity came from a confluence of trends and events – the rise of the Internet, talent scarcity (remember 4% unemployment), and a long, prosperous economic cycle. Needless to say, we’ve seen web adoption rates increase quite steadily, economic cycles wax and wane, and the hunt for good talent continue, with scarcity still existing in many instances. Recruiting functions must now excel in multi-channel branding, be adept at utilizing a variety of technology and related applications, and, overall, do more with less – certainly in today’s environment. They must also do everything they did before to anticipate and prepare for the company’s talent needs (workforce planning); select, assess, and hire the right people; and, develop outstanding relationships with hiring managers. Technology is bringing efficiencies to the recruitment process but this is not an environment that is standing still. We saw a first-generation response to these environmental factors with the introduction of applicant tracking systems (ATS) and the rise of sourcing functions as a means to streamline and develop specialization in the recruiting function. In many cases though, ATS’ weren’t able to meet the growing needs and sourcing functions were not effectively integrated into the recruiting function, were significant in size and were then the first to be cut when the economic situation and outlook worsened. The growing wave and influence of social media calls for a second-generation response – the community manager, to take the strategy beyond sourcing and develop sustainable communities. The value derived from the community manager role is a combination of efficiency, sustainability, brand leverage and reduced hiring costs. The value of sourcer, marketer and conversationalist is combined into the community manager role to target priority talent areas and support the company’s workforce planning strategy and respective needs. 

The perspective I’d like to provide is from the view of a corporate talent function leader. I’m going to take a holistic look at the community manager role to provide companies of varying size the options they need to be successful. Its often easier to tease apart the layers of a role and harder to consolidate them for effective execution and performance.

Structure:
The community manager reports into the talent function team leader and interfaces with recruiters, HR, marketing, internal communications, and targeted business leads. Through regular updates with the talent function team leader the community manager understands the talent priorities and designs a targeted strategy to attract and engage prospective talent. Talent priorities can be broken down by skill/experience, job levels, geography, function, business unit, etc. depending on the structure and needs of the company – think of alignment with workforce planning. The community manager should not be focused across the entire organization. This could come in time, but I would recommend beginning with a narrow rather than broad approach to establish the role and realize success before expanding. At the same time, it would benefit your strategy to have a longer-term vision so you stay aligned with the objectives and move forward incrementally. The community manager is focused on building pipeline and community not on open reqs. They should have a real-time view into open roles to expedite talent to recruiters and deliver more value to the connections they’re making externally.

This could be structured as a part- or full-time role. The resources allocated will obviously affect the pace of progress but it is doable. What is not doable is combining this role with a recruiter role. Why? The inherent risk when the role is structured as part of another role is that any time an urgent recruiting need comes up the community manager’s responsibilities end up on the back burner.  You won’t build the traction and momentum, progress will come more slowly and delivering on ROI objectives will be challenged. Additionally, the cost of building community is primarily in the human factor, and the absence of “voice” will leave people questioning their own time investment to engage with your brand.

Four skills of a great Community Manager

Communicator:
Being a good communicator is as much about listening as it is about talking. The community manager should be skillful in developing and nurturing relationships across a broad spectrum.

Internal relationships: The community manager builds relationships with multiple stakeholders to position themselves and the company for success.

External relationships: Develops relationships with prospective talent through a variety of channels – creates original content (text, visual and audio), comments and responds to engage across communities.

Company acumen: The community manager is most effective when they have a visceral understanding of the company’s brand, culture and objectives – what is the company trying to achieve and what is their authentic message.

Technically Adept: This role is a combination of conversationalist, sourcer, and marketer. Technology is the thread that weaves these together.

Persistently Curious:

While there may certainly be challenges with integrating this role in today’s business environment there is potentially more risk in not moving forward.  It is equally important for the recruiting function to be on the edge of newness and invest in preparing for the future, as it is for sales, marketing or product development, and IT. It could be argued that its even more important to invest in the recruitment function to support the company’s business needs and ensure the talent they need to execute across all the other functions can be found.  Investing in the community manager role now will allow the company to build a foundation at a time when there is an opportunity to engage talent at a lower cost of attraction and ensure the company is prepared as the business environment improves.

If you’d like additional background on the role of social media and recruiting, you can reference my article, Building a Recruitment Strategy in a Social World. You might also enjoy this article from the NYT that describes how communication, ideas, community and transparency are influencing the world.

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Update: And the winner is…… Lisa Matkowski!   Thanks for your patience with the final announcement of a winner.  Here’s the irony – Two different winners were selected – each done filming a video of me selecting the winner and both had to decline.  I selected a third winner and needed to wait to confirm that they were able to take advantage of the offer.  Lisa is confirmed and travel is set.  I look forward to meeting you in San Diego Lisa!

A very special thank you to all of my Twitter friends that helped promote the opportunity, ERE for the pass and related promotions and a very special thank you to Glen Cathey, the Boolean Blackbelt for his promotion efforts.  A total of 153 people responded to the poll and 92 people submitted an email expressing interest in attending the Conference.   

Take a quick survey to share your insights!  

Here’s the question: What impact is the current economic cycle having on your talent strategy? What approach to talent and business has your company taken during these challenging times? Respond to one of the two polls below to share your insight. 

Here’s the Reward: I want to help you get to ERE Expo at the end of the month.  Times are tough and budgets are tight, so in partnership with ERE I’m pleased to help one lucky person receive development and learning to keep moving your career and your company’s talent strategy forward.  ERE will provide you with a Conference pass for the general sessions - a value of $1395.  AND I’ll provide you with 35,000 Delta skymiles to get your there.  

Would you also like to attend the full-day Master Workshop that Kevin Wheeler and I are presenting? I can also offer you a very special rate of $595 – a savings of $200.  See a full description of our workshop included below the polls.  

Here’s what you need to do:  Answer the poll question below that best represents your company’s position and response during the economic downturn.  After you respond to the polling question – send me an email with the subject line “I want to go to ERE”.  Be sure your name and phone number are included in the email.  Also tell me how / where  you heard about the contest so I can thank who helped you get here!

Polls close on Thursday, March 12th at 3pm PT.  To be included in the drawing you must respond and send your email by that time.  One winner will be selected from the participants and I will contact the winner and book their travel with them.  Travel must be booked at least 10 days prior to departure or the recipient will need to pay any additional fees related to issuing the ticket.  If you win and don’t need travel but prefer to use the miles against a hotel room for ERE that can be arranged. 

Respond to only one question – #1 OR #2.  You can select multiple answers. 

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Pre-Conference Full-Day, Master Session Workshop

Strategic Talent Visioning and Action:
navigating the present to prepare for the Future and advance your talent strategy
Presented by Kevin Wheeler and Susan Burns 

“Very thought provoking & encouraged a very holistic approach.
Exercise was very useful to spark strategic thinking.”
Participant at our 2008 workshop

During these difficult economic times it is critical to be able to suggest alternative talent strategies to management and to be able to provide management with facts and data about internal and external talent quality and availability. Developing expertise around the realities of the talent market and committing to strategic directives that establish a guiding path will help to further your own development and leadership capability while also ensuring your company’s success in the future.

Some of the economic issues we face are caused by the shifting nature of work and the growth of globalization. As the business and talent landscape continue to shift, increased challenges around competition, multi-generational work environments, global complexities, and economic uncertainty require new boundaries of thinking and action. Developing the skills and approach to frame your strategy and build a compelling case positions you and your recruiting team to deliver increased value and guide your organization to success.

“Great content, made me think broader and deeper about strategic planning.  
Included great framework for strategic planning. Very valuable info.” 
Participant at our 2008 workshop

Through hands-on, interactive learning this workshop will boost your expertise in navigating the market and support you in:

• Developing a broader understanding of the trends influencing the talent market today and in the future that shape the overall landscape. 
• Building an approach to anticipating, preparing for and managing uncertainties in the business environment.
• Designing and incorporating market facts and data and company analytics to build a compelling case for enhanced talent function positioning.
• Leveraging a talent planning strategy to break through recruiting obstacles and reach new ground.

You’ll also work hands-on in a situational planning exercise that incorporates your experience, learnings from this session, and interactions with others to broaden your perspective of potential and desired outcomes.

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