Sirona Says

What would you do with a career break?

Don't you just love it when a company does something different and innovative? Well, while spending last week in Dublin with a client, I came across this piece of innovation from an Irish Bank.

Permanent TSB has come up with the innovative (and brave) move of offering paid career breaks to their staff. Now, there may well have been other companies doing this, but have they done it in a recession? No, the likelihood is that they would have simply gone for redundancies instead.
Obviously the intention of Permanent TSB is to cut spending while keeping skilled workers on standby, rather than lose all that well gained experience. And career breaks are more cost effective than redundancy:
Employees will be given half their salary up to 20,000euros to take a two year break, or 35,000euros to take a three year break. And it is open to staff of all ages and levels!

There will obviously be certain conditions imposed, and of course it won't suit everyone, but to have a career break with a guarantee of a job at the end of it is a step forward for those that are in need of a break.

Then the question comes......what would YOU do if you had a career break?

Mine is a simple one (once the children are self succient) - I would fly to Canada with my wife, buy a motorhome, and spend the time working my way down through many of the US states until we run out of land (ie the Keys)!

What would you do with a career break? (Please share your idea in the comments.)

Talent Management and free beans for a year!!

If someone mentions the product, baked beans, to you, which brand is synonymous with them? Well for me there is only one brand - Heinz. The same goes for soup, Heinz again!
But even with two such powerful brands (and others of course), the company were starting to lose market share, and even confidence in their own products - they didn't even serve them in their own canteen!

So, a new CEO was ordered  - the third in four years! So how did the new one, Dave Woodward, turn around the performance?
He realised that the future of the company lay in the strength of its talented employees. He encouraged employee involvement, engagement and empowerment - after all the employees should know their product and have their own great ideas and opinions, shouldn't they?
He went about the task like a steam train, firstly replacing ten of his twelve senior managers within four months, and put in place new talented managers who believed in his vision that success can be driven by internal talent - but only if they are correctly managed and motivated! Some of the other interesting changes he made were:

• At 8am every Monday morning, his most senior managers would attend a tasting session to tase every single new product.
• Every month, there would be meetings for all the 2300 - by video if needed. He used texting as the medium to collect questions to be asked at these meetings.
• He set up a group of 42 leaders who had to work in the factories, visit the retailers, talk to in store customers and even spend time in consumers homes!! He wanted them to get closer to their product and their customers.
• Introduced a Dragons Den initiative to help staff present their new ideas. Successful new products have been produced because of this. Rewards for this? Well one was a years free supply of beans!!

His belief in his staff and the initiatives he put in place worked because now two years later, Heinz have regained their No 1 position in their respective markets

I believe many companies should show more belief to their existing employees. Given the encouragement and involvement, they may well find that many more of their staff join internal talent management programmes. It will also improve staff retention, help further develop an employment brand and will help improve staff recruitment.
Companies don't always have to go externally to find the talent they need. They may just have to look a little harder - and maybe therein lies the answer. Is talent spotting the real issue?

 

Teach your children to speak chinese!

If you think we have got talent issues in the UK, then think again! China, now one of the new superpowers of the world, is needing to feed it's exponential growth with talent. Therein lies the problem. One, there isn't enough skilled people to meet the huge demand and two, one of their biggest problems is retaining employees, particularly Management.
Competition is stiff for Managers in China and high turnover just compounds the issue. Management-level attrition rates in China are more than 25 percent greater than the global average, and replacing a high-performing manager can cost 300% to 2,000% of that individual’s salary.

Jonas Prising, President of Manpower North America, says,“The United States is the biggest investor country in China, yet many of its companies are struggling to generate the growth they want because of people issues. Recruiting the right people, retaining the best staff and developing leaders of the future are difficult tasks in any market. For foreign companies operating in China, there is the added difficulty of understanding how to adapt talent management strategies to the country’s unique business culture and values.”

The rapid economic and social change that has already impacted China in a big way in the past few years has spurred a skills shortage that is expected to be massive in the next few years. The labour shortage in China is even more problematic than in other nations because it is most severe among managers. 40% of companies find it difficult to fill senior management positions.  Mid-level managers are also in short supply, particularly those who are Chinese nationals and can interact with local people.

So is it any wonder that search for talent in China has gone online, in this extreme example of a candidate driven market. The job board stats would be a dream for online companies in the UK, with the Chinese employments sites such as Zhaopin.com and 51job.com having daily hits in excess 4 million. But when you realise that China’s population is well be over 1.3 billion people you realise that it is just a drop in the ocean.

So if you are advising your children which GSCE's to study, or you really do want to give you little generation Z'ers a leg up into the global workplace, then start them studying mandarin or cantonese!!

Is there really a talent shortage or are companies just jumping on the bandwagon?

There is a recognised talent shortage in the UK currently..........isn't there?  Well that's what we are being told every day, so it must be true!!.

But is it a real talent shortage or is it a case of companies not being able to find the talent out there in the market? (Yes I know there are some genuine talent shortages such as engineering, construction and accountancy before you accuse me of being blase!)
There are those that jump on certain bandwagons without experiencing things for themselves, and I believe the 'shortage of talent' is no exception. Companies must not assume that the talent shortage applies to their industry until they have discovered it for themselves. If they don't do this, then they will be potentially missing valuable talent, that they would have otherwise missed.

There are three things that point to this happening right now:

• We know already know that companies don't use new technologies such as web 2.0 to source employees - technologies that we know prospective job seekers are actually using themselves, and want to use while looking for a job. STRIKE ONE.
• The CIPD says that only half of companies in their recent annual recruitment and retention survey have a formal resourcing strategy, meaning that resourcing is at best unplanned and random for a large number of companies (7P's).  STRIKE TWO.
• There is still a lack of respect (and some would say apathy) for recruitment in business. It is not given the standing and position it deserves in a company, usually just tucked away as part of HR.( In the US Resourcing/Recruiting is a stand alone business function that is part of business strategy and planning). So it has little chance of getting the resource , time and commitment it needs from the business to really perform effectively.  STRIKE THREE

So are companies doing all they can to recruit staff? Of course they aren't, but THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE, which is the problem!

The rise in recruitment agency spend highlights that the default method of recruiting staff  still appears to be  recruitment agencies. All the time companies fail to address their recruitment needs directly, then their level of spend with recruitment agencies will remain on the high side.
I am certainly not against using recruitment agencies, but companies should pick the 'low hanging fruit themselves'. Only then will they understand the talent marketplace, and what the issues around talent really are - and of course they will save themselves a fortune at the same time!!

Sticking your head in the sand is not the answer!!

Having attended the CIPD show on recruitment and retention this week, it has left me feeling a little disillusioned. Don't get me wrong, the show was very good and it was very well attended by many companies, but there seems to be a state of apathy around recruitment - more specifically, how to recruit new employees using modern technologies.
You are probably reading this and thinking I have gone mad, after all isn't every company saying they are trying hard to recruit talent? Well they may well be trying to recruit staff, but they are using the same recruitment tools and methods they have always. They seem to be allergic to trying anything "new" - and by "new" I simply mean online (reactive and proactive), networking, social networks, blogs etc
They have their heads firmly stuck in the sand, and are not even coming up for air to check on what is happening around them!

The New World of Work - fail to engage with generation Y at your peril!

Yesterday I was at the CIPD Recruitment and Retention show in London. There were a good range of half hour showcases on subjects like Web 2.0, Tesco's graduate recruitment and online recruiting. But for me there was one that was by far the most engaging of the day. It was from Bruce Morton of E3unlimited, who is renowned speaker on talent management. His subject was Generation Y. He not only talks with real knowledge  and passion, but he also engages with the audience very quickly.
Unfortunately there isn't a video from yesterday, but this video from his website shows you some of the thought provoking facts that are just around the corner for companies. Talent management and generation Y are problems of today, and should not be put on the shelf, just because companies don't think it applies to them right now. Anyway, enjoy The New World of Work.

10 Reasons why companies fail to retain their top talent

Talent Management and retaining staff is now absolutely key to a company wishing to be successful. I came across this interesting article by Eric Jackson on his blog, Breakout Performance, regarding talent retention. It is a self explanatory title, so here are Eric's ten reasons why companies fail to retain their top talent:

1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it's usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it's usually a sign that they didn't feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say "check please."

2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts -- by definition. Therefore, they usually don't have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they're enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they're really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a "nice to have" rather than "must have" conversation. However, unless you see it as a "must have," say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn't driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.

3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss -- and, therefore, the company -- isn't really interested in my long-term future here. If you're talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4....

Troublesome Talent - the Mavericks in your business

Every business has them, and you probably won't have to think too hard to write two or three names down from your company. The people I am referring to are Mavericks - also known as Troublesome Talent. They are both good and bad for a business, but do need special management to harness their skills. The lady that defined the phrase Troublesome Talent, Judith Germain of Dynamic Transitions, defines Mavericks as simply," Being Willfully Independent".
The upside of these Mavericks is that they are very talented, creative individuals that are extremely passionate about their work and are very comfortable challenging the established status quo. They have no fear confronting authority - but often do so with constructive ideas and arguments. Although some times they can be too confrontational and aggressive in the style. Larger organisations, with more rigid management structures may find it hard to deal with such Mavericks, because of their inflexible corporate nature. SME's and mid -sized companies, however, seem to be the ideal arena for Mavericks to flourish.

So with Talent Management such a key issue, should the big corporates try and get hold of, and harness these Mavericks? The answer is yes, but only if they are prepared.

Join the Police and become a Bounty Hunter!

Most companies these days have employee referral schemes, but it isn't very often that they become part of a 'recruiting war' between divisions of the same organisation!  The organisation I am referring to the police force in the UK, and particulalry my local division - Sussex Police.
The problem is a simple one - the London Metropolitan Police, in relatively close proximaty to Sussex, has been  'acquiring' experienced individuals from the Sussex force (78 last year), by encouraging internal transfers, primarily down to an increased salary they can offer in the capital. So from the Met's point of view, it is a very good and cheap candidate acquisition strategy.
But from Sussex's point of view, the loss of these experienced officers is huge. Think of the costs of recruitment to replace them, the training and the effects on morale.

So with that in mind, you would think that the Sussex police would be looking at their own retention strategy, to try and stem the tide of transfers. No, instead they focus on a more basic way - bounty hunting! They pay a £500 bounty on colleagues who can 'encourage' London officers to join the Sussex force!! And who pays for this bounty - the taxpayers!!!  Now, it seems that other police forces around the country are going for the same model and are adopting the same approach. So rather than catch thieves, they can catch their colleagues and get a bonus for doing so!!

Is this indicative of the state of our police force, or is it one of the following reasons:

1. Poor recruitment strategies - not recruiting the right officers in the first place
2. Worryingly poor retention strategies - and what about good counter offers?
3. Is there any Talent Management?
4. Complete lack of communication between divisions of the same organisation
5. Bad management
6. Government policies - pay awards and salary levels encouraging discrepancies
7. Lack of government action, when this has been prevalent for over a year
8. Poor divisional moral - encouraging a 'grass is greener' thinking by the officers
9. Abdication of responsibility from the overall head of the police force
10. Divisional HR sticking their fingers in their ears while singing la la la out loud - ie not listening!!

I would be interested to know how the individual divisions are 'promoting' this internal referral system - what do you reckon? Maybe.....'Bounty Hunters wanted' or ""Phone a friend" or "Don't nick a thief, steal a copper'!!!!
I am sure you will also have some ideas!!

Are Generation Y Women really 'Accidental Mashers'?

I have just read a fascinating article about how generation Y women are using their social networking skills to gain advantage in todays workplace. The utilise technology-friendly attitudes towards work, as well as the skills developed in the social networking world to improve their working lives. Serena Software, responsible for this survey, tag them as 'Accidental Mashers'!!

Just for the record, they define a Masher as a person who is able to use technology to be more productive in their personal life and at work.

Serena believe that the social networking skills learned online by the generation Y'ers, will actually be as important to their success in the work environment as their school/college classroom learning experiences. The study identified five unique segments - they call them Mashers - among technology early adopters. These five segments are:

• The Alpha Masher - The tech elite, drenched in technology, Alpha Mashers see it as having significant positive impact on their lives and ability to communicate. At work they are delegators, developing solutions to hand off (think: senior director, consulting firm). The most likely to agree that technology has a positive impact on the world (94 percent) and to be working full-time (91 percent). Predominantly males 35-44.