At the root of the irony is a serious issue that needs to be solved for the health of both individuals and business.  As I thought about the issues behind the irony, there are four that I feel capture the essence of what is going on.

The Issues:

• Talent Mobility
• The Engagement – Meaning gap
• Embracing an Anticipatory mindset
• Moving Beyond the Round-peg Syndrome

Talent Mobility
Talent mobility has been a mounting challenge.  People are particular about where they want to live and place a higher value on this choice than they have in the past.  Lifestyle is valued more than ever and people are willing to stand firm with their preferences.  While leading talent acquisition at Waggener Edstrom we encountered this scenario often.  The company had corporate offices in Seattle and Portland.  Both cities are in the Northwest but they offer very different styles of living.  It was a benefit to our recruitment strategy that, in most cases, we could present both cities as options.  People typically didn’t waiver and found that one city more than the other met their preferences.  I think Portland was winning, but maybe I’m biased.

Beyond choice, a significant mobility issue for people today is their housing situation.  The economics of the housing market make it very difficult for people to disengage from their investment.  Homeowners are looking at either reduced value or taking a sizeable loss on their investment.  While companies are not in a situation to cover losses many have chosen to do nothing at tall, except keep jobs open longer and longer trying to find a local candidate.  I have to wonder in this case how these companies value either time or the importance of the role itself. Part of a workforce planning strategy should be understanding which roles must sit in a specific geographical location.  If it isn’t a requirement, like retail sales or many manufacturing roles, then why let geography interfere with getting the best Talent?  Leverage technology and institute distributed workforce programs to close the distance gap.

The Engagement-Meaning Gap
Why are people willing to invest time in creating apps, blog content, videos and more with no direct return for their time.  Or potentially any return for their time.  Primarily because it provides them meaning and they get to do something they enjoy.  Companies spend millions trying to engage their workforce while the systemic forces inherent in the organization work against engagement.  And, high performing employees will tend to disengage more quickly. Which problems need to be solved in the organization and how can the company create a culture of collaboration and innovation that rewards people for great ideas and contributions?

People want to be engaged in their work.  They want their work to have meaning and their contribution to be valued.  They also want work that aligns with their skill-set and personal values.  This is no mystery.  We’ve created a societal culture of choice.  So, its no surprise that people are willing to hold out until they find a job that makes them feel good about the time they spend at work.  Or, find one that is “manageable” as they seek other avenues to fill the void.  Periods of great change present opportunities for exploration and we are experiencing significant shifts across the business landscape that are impacting the type of work available, career options and choice – all of which will take time to settle as people readjust.  The perceived loyalty gap, of companies towards employees, is perhaps deeper now than it every has been given the rise of transparency.  Because the loyalty gap has deepened, people are more particular about the risks they’ll assume with a company and ultimately the choices they’ll make about employment.  While it may be quite challenging to work through financial situations the emotional toll of a bad job fit is potentially worse. Needless to say, companies benefit from a strong cultural and job fit as well.

We know that there are plenty of jobs that will never return.  And, in some cases, people caught in the middle of the recession may never attain the status and income they had previously.  While that in and of itself is emotionally challenging, people are resilient and can adjust in amazing ways when faced with obstacles – and have more choices than ever to pursue.  Perhaps more important than the financial component though is the emotional need of finding meaningful work that is challenging and leverages their capabilities and potential.  Personally, I think this is one of the greatest obstacles to our recovery – as individuals, as a country and as contributors to global economic success.

Embracing an Anticipatory Mindset
While it’s clear that many jobs will not come back to pre-recession levels, new jobs are being created and other’s are being retooled that require new skills.  It’s true that in some instances these jobs require significant training and education.  However, in many jobs the skill gap can be closed through on-the-job training or short-term coursework if companies can get better at anticipating their needs and assessing the supply of talent where those skills exist.  If the nature of a business is changing and new tools, methods or processes are being developed and implemented to produce a product or service, chances are there will be a skills gap.  Our educational system is not designed to effectively reskill, although it could be.  Depending on the job level and skill need there could be a variety of options.  Ideally, an academic : business relationship would be most effective.  We saw this occur during the .com boom years when companies would do everything and anything to get the talent they needed.  Many companies established partnerships with universities to create intensive sessions designed to enhance skills and prepare new college graduates for a successful career with their company.  Programs were designed to help Liberal Arts students who needed to be taught business and computer skills but possessed other skills that would be valuable to their career success.  While this is still an important concept for new graduates it can and should be for experienced talent as well.

If someone with a bachelors degree or MBA wanted to update their skills and pursue a career in sustainable business practices what options are available?   Typically, for this and similar situations, the options are very short, 3 – 5 day intensives or full graduate programs.  What about a 3 or 6 month intensive?  Community colleges are also important avenues and they are working to meet demand.  However, without a coordinated and intentional effort between businesses and colleges / universities there is a risk of preparing people for the wrong types of work and / or not addressing the critical skill gaps.  Companies can, and are, taking on reskilling within their own environment.  But is this happening to the extent needed.  Businesses can’t wait for another talent crisis to pursue more creative partnerships and investments, even if they are pursued at a moderate level for now.

Moving Beyond the Round-peg Syndrome
Influenced in part by myth and in part by risk aversion, companies have adopted an even more conservative mentality to their hiring practices than usual.  Hiring managers believe there is plenty of talent available (the first myth) so recruiters should be able to match exact job requirements, most of which don’t take into consideration where the company is going – only where its been, and often lack a compelling reason to consider the role and join the company.  Too often, both hiring managers and recruiters believe that only those individuals currently employed are worth pursuing (the second myth).  While I agree with this mindset during normal times, this is not the case today.  Considering people who have been unemployed for longer durations does require a different approach, which could be quite revealing depending on the interview questions and answers, but can be quite valuable for the company.  Risk aversion, while understandable during difficult economic times, can also impede a company’s long-term success.  Risk aversion comes into play when companies fail to incorporate an “opportunistic” element into their recruitment strategy, especially during down-trending economic cycles, and perpetuates the problem.  Honoring the myths and assuming a risk averse mentality often means allocating more dollars to hire or keeping jobs open longer than necessary to find the round peg, both of which have an associated cost.

The real loss here is that companies are missing out on opportunities to further diversify their workforce and build loyalty.  Considering talent adjacencies or assessing for “potential” and cultural fit could deliver considerable value.  Pursuing an “opportunistic” approach provides companies with greater skill agility, which is important and valuable in uncertain business environments, which we’re sure to see for some time.  Applying the additional time and dollars spent on a candidate search to on-the-job development, where possible, also helps diversify the company’s workforce.  And, imagine what could be realized in employee loyalty! How much loyalty could employers gain if they invested in unemployed job seekers?  What’s the brand value of that move?  Additionally, in the time it may take a company to find their round peg they could have successfully on-boarded an opportunistic hire.

One way to think of this is like an apprentice or internship program.  A simple approach to opportunistic hiring can be accomplished through planning and a series of coordinated steps:

• determine which roles in the company are appropriate and could benefit from a mix of diverse skill sets and experiences
• reach agreement with hiring managers on a percentage of total roles / hires that could participate in opportunistic hiring and partner with your CFO
• partner with business unit leaders who will be champions of the program
• recognize and reward business partners who’s business units participate
• develop an ROI that demonstrates a reallocation of dollars and lost time to on-boarding, training and development – and ideally contribution and success
• partner with SME’s and the training group, in advance, to identify and/or develop a fast-track development curriculum, including experiential learning
• hire ahead of the curve so there’s time for the hiring manager to support a successful orientation.  This is critical to support success and why its important to partner with the CFO.  Hiring managers are less likely to be supportive if they’re under-resourced and scrambling to get work done because they have an open role.  Help make them successful so they can effectively support the new hire. You can recoup the cost of an early hire and demonstrate the value in your ROI.

Add all this up and incorporate the challenges recruiting departments are encountering as hiring picks up and you’ll see a perfect storm brewing.  How many good people are overlooked because recruiting teams are overwhelmed with applications and they lack the resources and/or tools to effectively cull through resumes to find the right-fit applicant?  How many people never hear back after applying for a job?  How will that impact the company’s hiring in the future?  Recruiting will always have structural issues and market inefficiencies.  The opportunity is to be creative and proactive to limit the issues outside of your control.

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Now, think about your company’s recruitment process.  What does the candidate experience feel like?  At the most basic level, is it efficient? Respectful?  Is it easy for a candidate to get to know your company in a meaningful way?  Has appropriate attention been paid to the importance of design? Are the job descriptions well written? Do they get the candidate excited?  Can the candidate see not only how their work contribution benefits the company but also what opportunities employment could provide?  Would they be excited enough about what they’ve learned to tell someone else?  Keep in mind that these elements only begin to address the front-end of your brand experience.  If you don’t have a clear talent philosophy and process that delivers brand continuity through each point in the application and interview process, your front-end experience will be quickly diluted.

If you read my post on Adaptive Talent Strategies you know that employment branding is one of the key elements.  In that post I discussed the importance of resource allocation, technology and process design to developing an adaptive strategy. An adaptive talent strategy provides you an architecture to meet the evolving needs of business and develop a value-oriented talent function.  The employment brand is a key component of the strategy.  Closely related is the use of networks, which has been increasing in importance to the brand and establishing an adaptive, sustainable approach – see the post on community managers.

Employment Brand and Networks
Employment brand and networks are tightly linked and should not be looked at as being independent from each other.  We also should not lose site of what’s at the center of the external employment brand and networks – the prospective employee.  And, yet, most candidates have less than desirable experiences with a company.  The job seeker’s experience will directly affect the company’s current and future competency in attracting and hiring the talent they desire.  This starts with the front-end experience and all too often deteriorates further as the candidate moves forward and expresses interest in a job.  The fact is that most corporate recruitment sites have become incredibly boring.  They’re flat, static and lack engaging attributes.  Very few catch your attention and draw you in.  I can hear the arguments. “But, we’re not really hiring now.”  ”We don’t have the resources.”  ”Business is way off.”  These may all be true but there other important truths.  What doesn’t happen today will be significantly more costly tomorrow because it will be much harder for you to catch up and secure the talent you need when you need it, which is why brand and networks are part of an adaptive strategy. Ultimately, the job seeker doesn’t care what your issues are – they only want a good experience and to be treated respectfully as they move through the application and, potentially, the interview process.  Even making relatively small investments today will provide exponential value tomorrow.  Think of it this way.  After connecting with friends on Facebook, exchanging tweets on Twitter, or connecting on LinkedIn they come to your website. Does it measure up?  Is the experience as interactive and engaging or does it feel like it needs an infusion of energy?

Moving from Fragmentation to Integration
The first place to look is at your corporate recruitment site – the center of your employment brand for prospective talent.  Aesthetic design, the application of technical elements and community spaces haven’t continued to evolve.  I do like Microsoft’s new site, and am still playing around on it.  The job search integration is sweet.  I also had a sneak peak at what Steve Fogarty is getting ready to launch at adidas and can only say that it will significantly raise the bar….stay tuned.  In many instances, brands have become fragmented through the introduction of new channels that are shifting quickly, but also important to connecting with prospective talent.  The model included below provides a view into the complexity of the recruitment ecosystem.  The corporate career site is at the core and each of the spokes shooting off from the center are brand touchpoints.  While it certainly isn’t necessary to be represented through every touchpoint it is important to understand who your trying to reach, what they do online and what is brand appropriate for your company.  However, This approach will help you capture and drive the most relevant job seekers to your site and set the stage for providing a positive experience.  Integrating a set of touchpoints into the corporate career site and supporting bi-directional links delivers a more enhanced brand experience and adds value. The dashed line circling the corporate career site and intersecting with each touchpoint represents the tools used to communicate and manage (CRM), support viral behavior (sharing), and push out content (RSS). Lastly, implementing an SEO and SEM strategy will advance visibility for your brand and drive relevant traffic to your site in a very cost effective manner.

Evolution
Ideally, the corporate career site has an embedded community.  Extending the corporate career platform to support actively engaging job seekers in a dialogue is simply an evolutionary step.  Why not engage job seekers in a discussion about the company, its products and services?  What are you proud of?  What problems are you trying to solve?  What are you working on?  Wouldn’t this type of interaction be more rewarding then having someone stop by for a visit and read, watch or listen to what you have to say?  Blogging is a good way to begin.  If your interested in learning more about how to incorporate a blogging strategy here’s a link to the Definitive Guide to Corporate HR Blogging.  I had an opportunity to work on this guide with Ben Yoskovitz of Standout Jobs.  Trust me, blogging is hard work and can take a lot of time but there is value in staying the course to develop your voice and a regular writing habit – I’ll let you know when I’m there! You’ll find that there are a lot of opportunities for companies to enlist a variety of voices as part of a blogging strategy that can make developing a diverse mix of content much more manageable.

As your thinking about your recruitment strategy, the talent your trying to reach and the experience you want to create, think about your favorite brand and how it makes you feel. Then, go to your website with the “eyes of your job seeker” and experience the brand. Are you smiling?

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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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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. 

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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So, how has this flowed down into the talent function in your company and how is it influencing the way you’re thinking about 2009 and the future?  What does your strategy look like to successfully navigate what the year brings and what the future holds?  The absence of strategy in itself is a strategy – just one that lacks deliberate intention and attention.  A well-defined strategy that reflects a longer time horizon and includes contingency options to shift and recalibrate as things evolve will support a stronger and more competitive positioning.

Here are a few questions you can reflect on to ride the wave of uncertainty, align your talent function with the strategic business plan and insert agility into your talent function to embrace the future and prepare your company and yourself for success.

Strategy or Economy: What’s having the greatest effect on the company’s business? Is there a good business strategy in place that’s simply feeling the impact of the wide-spread economic downturn or is there something else going on as well?  This is important to know because it will have a very different effect on business over the long-term, staffing momentum, and potentially your company and employment brand.  Also, how will the natural business cycle of your company weather the uncertainty and what will that mean to talent planning?

Business and Talent: Are you meeting regularly with business and financial leaders in your company?  Is there a clear understanding of which segments of the business are being impacted and what the short and long-term outlook is for each of these in terms of investment decisions and/or recovery?  What are the differences in growth and contraction across key businesses and what role does talent planning play in the short and long-term for each?  Given the outlook and big picture, how will this influence the talent your targeting, your active pipelines and ramp-up time to meet business objectives?

Beyond the Brand: Is your company actively hiring or are they in a frosty freeze?  What does the experience look like for job seekers?  Attracting new talent and engaging prospective talent in your proprietary community should always be a priority. The experience that each job seeker has with you now will determine if they are open to hearing from your company in the future – so when you reach back out to a candidate in 6, 12 or 18 months – when everyone else is as well, will they take your call and prioritize their interest in your company.  The ultimate cost here is the impact on your employment brand.  How can you not only protect your brand but enhance it even further?  Investing in developing a social media strategy is one way to further support your brand, if your not already doing it.  And, even if you are already actively working social media into your strategy this is the time to further embrace it and build up visibility and sustainability.  Does your structure support a sustainable social strategy? This is a low cost investment and one that needs time to take root.  I’m a big believer in establishing a structure that supports a “community manager”, a term borrowed from the consumer world, to ensure a solid and sustainable solution is in place.  I’ll write more about this in a future post but for now what should be considered is the time it takes to actively develop and nurture community.  Full-cycle recruiters simply can’t sustain what’s needed to deliver the ROI.  Reallocating work across the recruiting team could be one way to free someone up for 15 – 20 hours a week to begin, which should allow you to see a good ROI in 6 – 12 months.  The opportunity here is, that in time, you can show the value of the investment and either continue with someone part-time or build a case for a full-time resource. Continuing to identify talent, build relationships and actively qualify talent, even if your not hiring today, will ensure your prepared for the future.  I realize that there’s likely been a significant increase in the volume of resumes, referrals and phone calls flowing in but with the technology available today there’s every reason to perform as a high-touch staffing organization.

Backwards and Forwards: Look back at the past 10 years and ask yourself how much has changed in a relatively short period of time that affects how you, your team and the talent your trying to attract think and operate.  Think about how many new tools and technologies are now a part of your daily toolkit that didn’t exist before.  How have these influenced recruiting and talent management?  How about the way we receive, manage and share information? Now look forward 10 years to 2019.  Yes it feels like a long way off!  But, it will be here faster than we can imagine.  Remember life without Google, an iPod and corporate websites – not so long ago was it!  So, what can you anticipate and be ready for and how will you and your team keep pace to attract the best candidates, provide them with the best experience, and provide your company with a progressive and highly effective recruiting strategy?

Learning for the Future: Its easy to be successful when times are good and much more challenging when they’re not.  In the retail industry it was always desirable to have someone anniversary their own business results to enhance their learning, skills and business acumen.  Was the business last year a result of excellent planning and execution or timing? When the business climate is challenging it may not be fun but its an excellent learning environment.  What is your team learning and how can you operationalize and capture the learning?  Granted its not that you want to go through this again but how will what your learning today influence how you operate in the future to deliver enhanced efficiency and results.

Nurture Active Dialogue: How is information being shared to keep everyone on the same page, moving in the same direction, staying focused and having fun.  Facing tough and/or uncertain business over a period of time can certainly take its toll.  Keeping information flowing and inviting an active dialogue across the recruiting team, and broader HR team, keeps everyone focused, ensures people are informed and demonstrates a commitment to transparency.  Taking an approach that looks at both internal and external information and trends is key.  Having a process in place to develop and share competitive, economic and market intelligence is important at any time but especially now.  What has an effect on your industry, company and the type of talent you need to attract and retain?  Knowing the interest and status of your internal talent community supports transparency and ensures that both resources and priorities are aligned.   These are all things that will benefit your hiring today, protect the company’s existing talent, and positively impact how prepared you are for the build in momentum that will arrive.

Train for Endurance: As business turns around do you want to sprint or just quicken your pace?  How adept is the staffing team at keeping pace with exploring new tools and techniques that will advance talent strategies and actions over the long-run? Technology and tools are changing so quickly that its become an endurance sport just to keep up with the changes, filter through what’s really important and identify what’s right for your company, as well as ease the adoption curve.  Perhaps there’s someone on the staffing team that has a high affinity for technology – if not, there really should be. Can additional time be allocated to keeping a pulse on emerging technologies and educating the balance of team members so that when business does pick up your drinking from a straw rather than a fire hose?

Visibility and Review: Are you still on a path that supports your strategy?  Is the path your on still relevant? Keep your goals visible and revisit them often so your always aware of what you’ve committed to doing differently to advance your strategy, and its clear what your still doing.  It takes 21 consecutive instances of practicing something new to make it a habit.  And, it only takes 5% of a familiar past experience to trigger habitual patterns that bring you back to where you were! Lasting change comes one action, one decision, one behavior at a time built up and strengthened through consistency.

With the new year comes a time to reflect and to then begin moving your ideas and plans to action.…a chance to begin anew.  It also brings an opportunity for learning.  Welcome the challenges that arise and embrace the future!

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Welcome to the Talent Synchronicity Blog!  I hope you’ve had a chance to explore some of the core content about Talent Synchronicity and my background on the other pages in the site to get a feel for my experiences and how I think about the business of Talent.  In the blog section you’ll find me writing on a range of topics around Talent and business.  My interests and passion revolve around trends and events that influence how we think about Talent, how organizations can develop and implement strategies that enable engagement and collaboration with Talent, and the inherent value at the heart of relationships between Talent and organizations.  My perspective has been shaped from being on the front lines leading talent functions and multi-million dollar retail operations.  It continues to be shaped daily through awareness, conversations, experiences and gazing over the horizon to envision how business and Talent will collectively define and transform the future of work.

On occasion, you may even find a word or more on yoga.  Yes, yoga! I’m a dedicated practitioner and as my practice deepens through workshops and teacher training programs, there are a number of correlations to creating dynamic and collaborative workplace environments.  Yoga is about nurturing, shaping and establishing “union”.  Whether looking at the union of body and mind or the union of people and companies, it’s about how the pieces come together to create a stronger, more connected and solidified whole.

To stay up to date on new blog posts you can opt in to receive an email or subscribe via RSS.  I look forward to the thoughts, ideas and conversations we can share!

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