KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Workforce Strategy 3.0 - Position Your Company As a Leading Place To Work

With a rocky economy, emerging industries on the rise, four generations in the workforce, Sr. level leaders on the verge of retirement or redeployment and a sea of talent management issues knocking at your door, it is time to start thinking about how your company will maximize it’s return on your people investments.

KeenHire’s Workforce Strategy 3.0 Webinar empowers employers to take a new look at their human resource processes and their approach to Talent Management, Recruitment, Performance Management, Employee Engagement and Key Contributor Employee Retention.

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September 6, 2011

10:30-12:00 PST

Click HERE to Register

The number 1 trend that has a major impact on the workplace is workforce optimization, specifically is key contributor recruitment, utilization, succession planning and retention. 

We delve into your company's employment, recruitment and retention issues. We will dispel the myths and uncover critical issues that affect your company’s ability to attract and retain the right people in your key contributor and next level leadership roles.

  Walk Away With…

1. Hands on experience in uncovering the Real Cost of Employee Turnover and the impact that it has on your ability to achieve your corporate strategic objectives.

2. Knowledge about the organizational development methodology for assessing your company’s real human capital needs.

3. The competence and capability to improve your company's ability to attract, select, engage, manage and retain your mission critical, key contributor and next level leadership talent.

4. Power to develop a winning employer value proposition with several practical employee retention strategies and employee engagement initiatives.

5. The ability to forward your company’s revenue by incorporating the Talent Mindset into your everyday management and people practices. 

The Expert

Margaret Graziano is a torchbearer in the Staffing and Recruitment industry. Her visionary ability, astute knowledge of full life cycle Talent Management and her tenure in the field, positions her far ahead of the Human Capital innovation curve. In the early 2000's Graziano shifted her mindset from recruiter working to make a placements to consultant committed to building extraordinary workforces. She added a talent management division to her staffing operation, adopted a world-class Conscious Hiring and placement process and significantly invested in her own personal and professional development. She utilizes her certifications in Organizational Development, Behavioral Interviewing, Psychometric Assessment usage, Role Analysis and Employee Retention to create curriculum and programs that elevate KeenHire's customers' ability to hire and retain the right people.

The Society of Human Resource Management reports that 6 of the top 10 Workplace Trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention, don’t be a part of that number.

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Want to Bring a KeenHire Consultant In-house? Call Today! 1-888-533-6447

If the Job Could Talk...

By Bill J. Bonnstetter

 

JOB TALK

If a job could talk, it would explain precisely what was necessary to achieve superior performance. We could ask it to tell us about the:

• Knowledge a person needs,
• Personal attributes required to drive success,
• Rewards for superior performance,
• Hard skills vital for the job,
• Behaviors necessary to perform at peak levels, and
• Intrinsic motivators.

But we all know that jobs can't talk. If they did, we would certainly hear the real story.

Applying the Win/Win principle to the “War” for Talent

As the business-news media competes for our attention by flashing information on the impending talent shortage, some of us listen with a keen ear while others turn to more urgent, pressing issues. After 22+ years in the human resources business, I don’t need the media to tell me there is going to be a problem; I already feel it in my bones, similar to how my grandfather used to know it was going to rain by his knees aching. When your business is the business of finding talent you are the first to feel ANY inkling of change in the marketplace. Although I may feel like I run a best-in-class business, and I may have evidence that I know how to skin the cat better than the competitor, KeenHire is all the more faced with the challenge of locating new talent for myself and my clients in a diminishing talent pool marketplace.

The looming & ‘impending’ talent shortage seems to be creeping up right from under us. KeenHire has more specified search requests than we have had in 5 years. As companies proactively deal with succession planning and building bench strength, we are seeing salaries going up, qualifications becoming more stringent, and expected outcomes for the candidates showing up as more measurable as well as difference making. All this with less people to chose from makes for a very competitive market place for employers and candidates alike.

So how does a company who has ambitious goals compete for talent in the midst of a WAR for it?

You could outsource. You could offshore. You could take on employing the at-home passive work force, like Jet Blue and Southwest. You could take on hiring the flexible work force, students, retirees and parents. You could home grow your talent, become a farm club of sorts, which many of my clients are doing very successfully. You could pay large retainers and then wait while the search firm does the searching. You could develop your company as an employer of choice where 'win/win' is the norm; where people feel they are not just serving your corporation's needs, but their needs are getting fulfilled as well.

20.9% Increase In Demand For Temporary Workers

Labor Forecast Predicts Increase in Demand

In 2010 Fourth Quarter

 

- - Industry Consulting Firm G. Palmer & Associates’ Quarterly Forecast

Assists in Previewing Near-Term Hiring Patterns - -

 

Newport Beach, Calif., October 18, 2010 — Demand for temporary workers in the United States is expected to increase 20.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the 2010 fourth quarter when compared with the same period in 2009, according to the Palmer Forecast™, released today.

 

The Palmer Forecast™ indicated a 20.3% increase in temporary help for the just-ended 2010 third quarter, which actually came in higher than anticipated, at a 21.6% increase, reflecting stronger than expected GDP growth, along with slightly larger gains in labor productivity.

 

 

“Following recent trends, our 2010 fourth-quarter forecast shows continued steady improvement and indicates another increase in demand for temporary workers, marking the fourth-consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases,” said Greg Palmer, founder and chief executive officer of G. Palmer & Associates, an Orange County, California-based staffing industry consulting firm.  “It is clear that the flexible labor markets are showing signs of improvement, when compared with both historical sequential and year-over-year trends.

 

“Nevertheless, it is important to be cognizant that consumer spending remains sluggish, the real estate and construction sector is still depressed in many markets, and many state and local governments continue make additional job cuts. This all adds up to measured optimism and continued uncertainty,” Palmer added.

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that seasonally adjusted temp jobs grew 23.4% year-over-year in September. Temp jobs, seasonally adjusted, were up 3.4% sequentially from August.  Palmer said, “This trend is an encouraging sign of a rebound in the flexible labor markets, since historically the August-to-September increase has been much lower, and September was the 11th out of the last 12 months of consecutive positive seasonally gains.”  September’s increase added to the creation of 217,000 temp jobs since the beginning of the year.

The commonly referred to unemployment rate (U3) held steady at 9.6% in September. The Labor Department report also indicated that 95,000 non-farm jobs were lost in September, of which 77, 000 were temp government census jobs, and 76,000 were other local and state government positions.  It was also reported that 64,000 private sector jobs were created, with the bulk being service-related.  

“The positive direction of sequential increases in temporary help, were offset by September’s negative overall non-farm numbers,” Palmer said. “Temporary help, which typically is the first job category to improve at the beginning of an economic expansion, continues to see gains. However, the non-farm jobs are seeing less-than-anticipated positive movement versus previous recoveries.  We are also expecting continued unevenness in certain categories, such as industrial staffing.  Certain sectors within healthcare and IT are expected to continue to demonstrate strong year-over-year gains in the 2010 fourth quarter, while professional staffing and direct hire, both of which historically lag, are expected to remain somewhat softer.”

Palmer said the high unemployment rates during this recession continue to have far-reaching effects across a broad spectrum of workers.  As reported by the BLS, workers with college degrees experienced a slight decrease in their unemployment rate in June to 4.4 % from 4.5% in August.  The unemployment rate for workers with less than high school degrees during the same period increased to 15.4% in September from 14.1% in August. The U6 unemployment rate, which tracks those who are unemployed, as well as those who are underemployed and are working part-time for economic reasons, was down slightly at 16.5%.  The U6 rate is considered the rate that most broadly depicts those most affected by the downturn, and measures the rate of discouraged workers. Palmer added, “The breakdown of the stubbornly high unemployment rate continues to reflect the much talked about skills gap found in available workers and their current skills, versus the required skills necessary for today’s increasing technical and skills-based positions.”

 

The next few quarters…

 

“We still expect the unemployment rate to remain high for the foreseeable future,” Palmer said. “At the same time, we believe that temp help job losses reached the bottom in the third quarter of 2009, as evidenced by the gains since then.  We expect the positive trend will continue, but with the recently reported downward revisions in GDP growth, we believe future rates of growth will be uneven.  There continues to be uncertainty in private sector hiring decisions, and this typically bodes well for temp staffing, as evidenced with 36% of jobs created this year (217,000) being  temp positions—an especially eye-opening statistic when considering the temp sector only accounts for 1.6% of the average daily work force.”

 

 

The Palmer Forecast™ is based, in part, on BLS and other key indicators. The model was initially developed by The A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University and serves as an indicator of economic activity. Companies that employ temporary staff use the forecast as a guide to navigate through fluctuating economic conditions in managing their workforce to meet business demands.

About G. Palmer & Associates

G. Palmer & Associates, founded in 2006, advises companies in the human capital sector with sales, operations and margin enhancement, and to explore strategic alternatives for increasing shareholder value.  Founder Greg Palmer has served on the board of the American Staffing Association and was president and chief executive officer of RemedyTemp, Inc., one of the nation’s largest temporary staffing companies, prior to its sale in June 2006.  For more information, visit www.GPalmerandAssociates.com.

Vice President Human Resources

YOU WILL LEAD THE TALENT MANAGEMENT CHARGE FOR EFFECTIVELY SCALING

THIS PEOPLE CENTRIC ORGANIZATION.

WORK AT HOME - 60%

TRAVEL WITH EXECUTIVE TEAM - 40%

Make your impact with one of the most successful, high profile Business Process Outsourcing firms in the U.S. and Canada!

VIPdesk has a strong track record of excellence with many high profile customers, is poised as a future 50 and has been an Inc 500 recipient for 3 years running. VIPdesk needs your expertise to scale.

 

Your strategies for High Volume Recruitment, Distance Learning and Employee Development, and keen Performance Management are keys to your success.

You are a high impact player in the Talent Management field. You have scaled a strategic human resources function from 1000 to 5,000+ employees.  You have expertise in implementing highly effective and scalable Retention, Training & Development, On Boarding, Performance Management and Recruitment programs for a customer-facing workforce.

The VIPdesk team are specialists in finding the right people with the right skills that improve our customers’ brand experience. Our team members provide a premium customer experience, build brand loyalty and drive results. We have over 800  customer care professionals (Concierges and Brand Ambassadors) in our 100% home-based workforce and are projecting 200% growth over the next 5 years.

You are a strategic minded, innovative and results oriented leader with a dynamic track record of success and a passion to be an integral member of a mission driven team.  You have an exceptional competency for developing Distance-learning programs through LMS and executing game changing people processes, systems and initiatives. Your ability to inspire and coach business leaders and managers through organizational change and growing cycles is exceptional.

VIPdesk is the award-winning pioneer of home-based virtual customer care solutions for global brand leaders committed to enhancing their brand experience. Serving over 40 client programs and 10 million customers, VIPdesk specializes in delivering Concierge Programs, Customer Care Services, and loyalty programs for national brand leaders in the travel, auto, financial services, and retail industries. You are excited about driving a positive culture in support of VIPdesk’s core values.

You are the ideal candidate if you posses a solid track record of success in high profile staffing for the retail or hospitality industries, have a strong business and human resources knowledge base, are actively engaged in staying ahead of the curve, have 7+ years in a HR leadership role.

You must have been instrumental in scaling a people centric organization and posses strong expertise in implementing full scope, best practice Talent Management solutions. 

To Apply : http://keenhire.sayhired.com/ci/apply.shp?which=837-1140-1413

Employer of Choice. Train Your Managers To Retain The Best Employees

The Premise

With a rocky economy, emerging industries on the rise, four generations in the workforce, Sr. level leaders on the verge of retirement or redeployment and a sea of talent management issues knocking at your door, it is time to start thinking about how our company will maximize it’s return on your people investments.

 

The Society of Human Resource Management reports that 6 of the top 10 Workplace Trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention.

 

The number 1 trend to most likely have a major impact on the workplace is workforce retention, and the most critical HR function effecting business strategy is Staffing/Employment and Recruiting.  Companies who know that people are their competitive advantage are focusing on achieving organizational effectiveness, implementing stronger hiring processes, improving employee engagement, impacting workforce retention and elevating the performance of their people.

 

The KeenHire™ Talent Strategy 3.0 program empowers employers to take a new look at their human resource processes and their approach to Talent Management, Recruitment, Performance Management, Employee Engagement and Key Contributor Employee Retention.

 

Join us for this provocative, insightful and fun program that delves into the corporate strategic talent management and workforce performance issues and highlights innovative and practical solutions to solve them.  Click Here NOW to register.

 

The Program

We delve into your company's employment recruitment and retention issues, dispel the myths and uncover critical issues that affect your company’s ability to attract and keep the right people in your key contributor and next level leadership roles.

-Employee Retention-Understand the difference between Talent Equity and Tenure Equity. Review the generational parameters and influencers effecting employee engagement & retention. Delve into practical retention strategies and how to implement them into your day to day business.

-Workforce Assessment-Learn the organizational development approach to uncovering your company's people challenges.  Work with Benchmarking and Top Grading and learn how it can help you help your company maximize it's returns on it's people investments and mitigate hiring, engagement & retention mistakes.

-The Talent Mindset-Understand how a change in mindset is imperative to your company's ability to attract and retain the right people in the right roles. Strategize on astute methods, keen processes and provocative employee programs that forward your company to be an Employer of Choice.

-The Real Cost of Employee Turnover-Work through a hands on deep digging exercise and uncover the painful impact of hiring the wrong person or keeping the wrong person in a key role.

Take Aways

1. You gain hands on experience in uncovering the Real Cost of Employee Turnover and the impact that it has on your ability to achieve your corporate strategic objectives.

 

2. You learn the organizational development methodology for assessing your company’s real human capital needs.

 

3. You gain competence and capability to improve your company's ability to attract, select, engage, manage and retain your mission critical, key contributor and next level leadership talent.

 

4. You walk away with power and prowess as well as hundreds of practical employee retention strategies and employee engagement initiatives that forward your company's ability to incorporate the Talent Mindset into your everyday management and people practices.

  

The Expert

Margo coaches business leaders on building strategic minded stakeholder centric organizations. Her expertise in Strategic planning and Organizational effectiveness position her in a senior level Executive advisory role. She has developed proprietary work flow process, training and tools that enable her customers to implement Conscious-hiring protocols, High performing Recruitment initiatives, Employee Retention and Leadership development.

 

Want to Bring a KeenHire Consultant In-house? Call Today! 1-888-533-6447

 

 

Registration

 

Virtual Courses consist of 8 weekly 2 hour sessions and begin on June 18, August 9, September 17 and costs $599.00 per person. Save 30% overall when you register 3 or more participants.

 

Hiring, Managing, Engaging and Thriving With Your Virtual Workforce

When you have to do more with less, hiring virtual employees could be the perfect solution, just remember to Choose those virtual team members wisely. When you make the choice to open your doors to the virtual workforce you open yourself and your company to a whole new world of responsibility such as performance management for virtual employees, virtual team building and retaining virtual employees.

Keep in mind certain aspects you take for granted in managing and engaging your in house employees must be addressed, shifted and tweaked when hiring, managing and engaging with the virtual workforce. It is extremely important that you get it right in the beginning as more and more of your workforce will choose the virtual option and more and more companies are offering it.

Virtual team members carry more than just the burden of remembering which time zone they're working in. Business and Hiring Managers need to recognize the different way that virtual team members experience signal and noise. In order for a team with virtual members to work well, some effort needs to be spent up front on team governance and organizing communication processes into a tune with a good beat you can dance to.

 

 I'm thinking about the distractions around virtual team members because I stumbled on a great, if somewhat geeky, article in Information Technology & People that speaks to what my company does.  The gist of it is that co-located teams and virtual teams have different ways of getting to trust and team commitment.  In short, co-located teams develop trust through irregular personal interactions, whereas virtual teams build trust out of regular processes and clearly defined working relationships. 

 

This makes a lot of sense.  If you work side by side with your teammates you get cues all the time from them about how to work together.  In fact, you're receiving peer pressure, process pressure, the persuasion of the team leader and company pressure all at once, all the time.  It’s like listening to a symphony – notes and melody swirling around, but with somebody guiding them in the same direction.  Not much of a surprise then that it's relatively easy to get to a high level of team commitment with all that conducting going on. 

 

But put yourself in the shoes of the virtual team member.  Boy, what fun!  You get all the interaction of your local environment, but what you're tasked with focusing on is something invisible, unfamiliar and that doesn't give much feedback.  It reminds me of a pledge drive: I'm trying to just drive the car and not to hit anything when the music stops and the man asks me to pick up the phone.  We all know how well that works: I turn down the distraction and stay on the road. 

 

What I read in this article is that, in general, it's hard to focus in a noisy environment, and that people are really bad at thinking on their feet when they're under pressure.  I've always thought that it's a good idea to have a protocol to follow in the event of a surprise, so that you don't have to actually think on your feet.  Fortunately, for co-located team s these surprises and the resulting pressure are (usually) infrequent events that occur and get resolved.

 

But in a virtual team, the members are always under pressure. What they need is more like sheet music to guide from beginning to end.  And what the authors are suggesting is that it's that note by note guidance that makes it possible for the team to get its work done at all.  The team’s sheet music helps keep everyone together so they can create a soundtrack, not just background noise.  A pledge drive is easily turned down and ignored, but a good regular four-four beat gets turned up and sung along to.

 

The team leader has to orchestrate those rhythmic processes and clear relationships at the outset when he or she has the best chance of being heard.  That's the time, early on when an awful lot of us would likely be thinking about the schedule, that we should be spending our energy on governance. That’s when we should be setting up the relationships, performance management standards and processes that inform how work actually gets done.  After all, a schedule tells me how long I can wait until my tasks go critical. But what a virtual team needs early on is members zeroing in on their responsibilities and understanding the process for communicating regularly to the team that they're on the beat.

 

It's all about making it easy to do the right thing. The world is full of distractions. The challenge for a virtual team is to systematically make teamwork simple enough and regular enough to cut through the noise. 

 

 

David Kershaw

Founder, eVisioner

http://www.evisioner.com

MetaTeam :: Revolutionizing The Way Teams Work!