Action Steps For “Leading Edge” Recruiting Managers and Recruiters

ere.net Webinar - January 13, 2009

© Dr. John Sullivan Professor, Author and Advisor to Management

www.drjohnsullivan.com

Emerging Talent Acquisition Trends for 2010

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I have four goals for this webinar

1. To give you some insight into what is likely to happen during 2010

2. To provide you with some advanced action steps to consider

3. To make you think

4. To answer your questions (Please feel free to submit them throughout the webinar using the Q&A Module)

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Topics that I will cover today:

1. A quick snapshot of my predictions for 2010

2. How to predict the turnaround at your organization

3. The first step is to become “more businesslike”

4. Plans for handling “the churn” during 2010

5. The return of intense competition for talent

6. Prioritizing recruiting tools

7. Benchmark firms to learn from

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I. A quick snapshot of my predictions for 2010

Description of last year – Continually bad Description of this year – Churn, with a mixture of ups and downs

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My predictions for 2010  Mixed news – the recession will be officially over

by March, but business confidence and risk-taking will not return immediately

 Prepare with – an industry and internal analysis looking for precursors that indicate when “your” turnaround should begin

---  Good news – a mid-year start of the turnaround

(beginning of the end for freezes)  Prepare with – a new business case proving the $

impact on revenues of delaying hiring  Prepare with – a ramp up recruiting plan to

revitalize the recruiting function

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My predictions for 2010  Bad news – another down cycle following a brief

upturn is highly likely  Bad news – the possibility of a catastrophe  Prepare with – an agile recruiting plan that

includes both growth and downturn elements ---

 Bad news – slow hiring growth and under budgeting for another year

 Prepare with – a plan to focus on low cost but effective recruiting tools and leveraging employees time to help in recruiting… until budgets increase

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My predictions for 2010  Mixed news – Assume uneven growth. Some

products will be exceptions, some regions will be exceptions (China, India) and some industries will be exceptions (healthcare, defense, homeland security, alternative energy, stimulus related work, mobile technologies)

 Prepare with – a prioritized recruiting plan that focuses on growth areas (regions, products, jobs and business units)

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My predictions for 2010  Mixed news – technology is now capable of

replacing much of what employees used to do  Prepare with – a plan to offer advice on when

robots, hardware and software should be considered in lieu of hiring people

---  Bad news – retention will become a major issue  Prepare with – a retention plan and increased

hiring targets to make up for losses

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My predictions for 2010  Bad news – housing issues will continue to make

relocation difficult  Prepare with – a localized recruiting strategy and

“remote work” jobs

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II. How to predict the turnaround at your firm

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How to predict when your firm will ramp up hiring Turnarounds follow a repeating pattern  Identify industry and economic precursors  Identify industry first mover/leader firms  Look for internal business precursors from

previous turnarounds (change in sales, sales projections, production projections, inventory levels, budgets and strategic plan changes)

 Look for recruiting precursors from previous turnarounds (increase in OT, hiring more temps, salary increases, loosening of hiring freezes)

 Have a ramp-up plan ready for whenever it occurs

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III. The first step is to become “more businesslike” in order to increase your credibility

among business executives

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Become more “businesslike” Before ramping up, executives will expect:  A Failure analysis – identify what we did right

and wrong last time… with plans to improve each  A competitive analysis (website/new-hires)  Risk analysis – calculate the risk of ramping up

hiring too soon or too late (the $ value added… as a result of being the first to ramp up hiring)

 Other pocket costs – develop a process to identify any unintended consequences (slower time-to-market, less innovation, higher error rates, etc.)

 Mirror the supply-chain model – a shift towards database decision-making in recruiting

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Become more “businesslike” Before ramping up, executives will expect:  Alternatives to hiring permanent employees –

be prepared to provide advice on less permanent substitutions to hiring employees including… contingent labor, outsourcing, offshoring, etc.

 Focus – A focus on revenue generating positions, innovators and game changers

 Better actionable metrics – a shift away from historical “efficiency metrics” for continuous improvement in decision-making

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Become more “businesslike”

Dollarize recruiting impacts on rev. in these areas:  Revenue losses due to excess position vacancies  Performance differential – the dollar value of

increased performance between a top-performing new-hire and an average one

 $ impact of hiring innovators/game changers  Cost of a bad hire that must be terminated  Cost of early turnover among new-hires  $ value in lost sales from dissatisfied applicants

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IV. Plans for handling the churn

Churn – the continuous adding and releasing of

employees and labor capabilities

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Seven characteristics of employee churn

Employee churn means… 1.  Hiring in some jobs, regions and business

units… when all other hiring is frozen 2.  Laying off in some business units or regions…

while simultaneously hiring in others 3.  Higher rates of turnover due to poaching, easy

job search and reduced loyalty 4.  The need to move labor internally to areas of

higher return/ROI

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Seven characteristics of employee churn

Employee churn means… 5.  The need to rapidly increase labor capabilities

by increasing productivity, hiring contingent workers and outsourcing

6.  The need to rapidly reduce labor costs by releasing contingent and regular workers and reducing flexible outsourcing

7.  A sudden need to acquire new skill sets due to product innovation and skill obsolescence …when there is no time for retraining

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Action steps for handling employee churn

Develop an agile recruiting strategy  Rather than a constant approach, the strategy

“flexes” as economic and business conditions go up and down

 Recruiting resources are shifted periodically, rather than once a year

 Recruiters have extra capabilities, so they can add value when there is little hiring (retention, outplacement, customer service, etc.)

Agile Strategy Article: http://bit.ly/6DkWhB

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Action steps for handling employee churn Develop a sophisticated contingent labor strategy  Drop the “old school” non-integrated approach  Set contingent goals to meet maximum up and

down cycles  Determine the appropriate “type of labor” for

each job family (i.e. part-time, temporary, seasonal, contractors, retirees, outsourcing, etc.)

 Treat all “labor types” in a similar fashion, so they are integrated into the team (training, meetings, communications)

Contingent Labor Management Article: http://bit.ly/5Hgdv3

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Action steps for handling employee churn Develop a process for continuous internal movement  Stop relying on slow internal job posting systems  Proactively “guide” your employees and

contingent workers toward areas of higher impact  Develop the capacity to move both individuals

and teams  Reward managers for “releasing” and accepting

top talent  Educate everyone on future growth areas

Improving Internal Movement Article: http://bit.ly/8SDtcQ

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Action steps for handling employee churn

Develop an “explode out of the box” plan  Do a gap analysis between projected recruiting

needs and current capabilities  Assess your brand strength and negatives  Identify jobs that are likely to open up first  Revitalize low cost/high quality recruiting tools

that leverage the time of others (employee referrals, professional events, employees active in social networks, etc.)

Explode Out of the Box Recruiting Plan Article: http://bit.ly/8O02e6

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Action steps for handling employee churn

Coordinate with training and on-boarding

  JIT training may be needed because many new-hires will have been underemployed or unemployed

  Effective on-boarding will be required to get new hires up to speed and productivity rapidly

 Re-educate hiring managers that are likely to be rusty and unaware of new recruiting tools

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V. The return of intense competition

and a shift in the “power”

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The return of intense competition Action steps for handling intense competition  Survey your talent competitor’s websites to

understand where you compete head-to-head  CI - Ask recent hires & candidates about the

strengths/weaknesses of competitor’s rec. process  Compare your job descriptions to theirs  Assess the visibility of your jobs (SEO)  Survey new-hires during on-boarding to identify

what worked and what didn’t during the process  A “blocking strategy” to protect your own

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A shift in the power requires a new approach

Action steps for handling the shift in power  Shift from active candidate tools & strategies  Educate hiring managers about the power shift  Survey candidates to understand their current

“job acceptance criteria”  Improve the candidate experience  Schedule interviews during off hours  Utilize live remote video interviews  Improve the “offer process”

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VI. Prioritize these recruiting tools

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Prioritize these recruiting tools  Adopt direct sourcing tools – the increased

visibility of almost everyone makes direct sourcing, utilizing social media and social networks, the hottest skill set (emerging tools increase feasibility)

 Revitalize your employee referral program – it needs to be closely integrated with your social recruiting strategy and expanded into college

 Boomerang re-hires – if you released a lot of good employees, an alumni network and a boomerang process should get top priority

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Prioritize these recruiting tools

Social media action steps  Utilize all types of social media, not just LinkedIn,

Facebook & Twitter (videos, blogs, Second Life, meetups, forums, ad words, employee reviews)

 Counter CIO objections  Involve / leverage all employees  Develop templates for profiles  Identify the sources of hire (during on-boarding)  ROI metrics including quality of hire

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Prioritize these recruiting tools

Utilize the mobile platform

 Because of the wider usage of smart phones

 Because it can handle any message or media

 Because mobile phones are almost always with the candidate

 I am forecasting that the mobile platform… will become the most effective messaging and communications tool in recruiting

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Prioritize these recruiting tools

More recruiting tools to follow  Green recruiting must be more sophisticated  On-line assessment continues to grow and

improve  CRM software – alternatives to ATS’s grow  Intelligent decision software – allow your human

resources to be managed more scientifically  Contests to identify candidates or to gather

external ideas  Your corporate web site is probably obsolete

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Keep an eye on these recruiting tools

Over the horizon but some are already trying these  Building online talent communities based on

learning  Crowdsourcing  Utilizing credit card and financial information for

sourcing  Virtual simulations for assessment  100% remote hiring  Personalized recruiting (individualized)

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Other actions to consider

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Other action steps to consider

 Recruiter competencies need to be dramatically updated

 Rewards for great hiring and retention for both managers and recruiters

  Service-level agreements  Link performance management with hiring  Get serious about diversity hiring  Revisit college hiring (remote hiring)  Hiring recruiters from sales and marketing  Be careful of hiring out of date recruiters

Benchmark firms that are ahead of the curve

 Google

 Microsoft

 DaVita

 Sodexo

 Zappos

 Aimco

 Deloitte

 NY Yankees

 U.S. Army

 Intuit

 Capital One

 Enterprise

 Southwest Airlines

 Booz Allen

 E&Y

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Did I make you think?

How about some final questions?

www.drjohnsullivan.com

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