The War for Talent Is Returning; Don’t Get Caught Unprepared

Here is a heads-up alert for you: be prepared because not only will the infamous “War For Talent” be returning to impact your firm, but it is already underway in its full intensity here in the Silicon Valley. Begin planning for this next round of talent wars, because once the intense competition begins, there simply won’t be time to catch up with, no less get ahead of your talent competition. If you’re not familiar with the “war for talent” phenomena, it involves a prolonged period of intense competition where top applicants are both scarce and arrogant, employees leave by the droves, firms regularly raid each other for talent, and bidding for top talent is commonplace.

If you have global contacts, you already know that not just in the Silicon Valley, but also in Australia, as well as parts of Canada, India, and China are already involved in the latest round of the “War for Talent.” Entire industries like social media, gaming, and oil/minerals are currently involved in a war for talent, as are top-rated firms like Facebook, Google, Apple, Zynga, and most startups in social media, mobile phones, medicine, and technology. Here in the Silicon Valley, talent competition has already returned to near 1999 levels. For example, recently a recruiting firm sent 150 cookie baskets directly to key employees at Zynga, the social game developer. They didn’t send them to their home, but directly into the office where they could provide the maximum impact by creating a buzz and letting every employee learn that outside firms wanted them. Winning a war requires bold action not conservatism.

Examples of How Boldness Is Required in a War for Talent  

Here are a few of many examples on how firms have stretched the limits of talent management in order to remain competitive.

• Match this referral bonus - DNAnexus, a Silicon Valley sequence storage and analysis firm, offered a $20,000 referral bonus for successful referrals for the relatively common job of software engineer.  They also threw in a full genome sequence for the employee as an added bonus.
• Low tech drive-by recruiting – Zspacer, a cloud security firm, drove a van with a “we are hiring” banner continually around the building of its “target” competitor, Blue Coat, in order to entice the competitor’s employees into leaving.
• Turn a job into a game – most people like playing games and competing, so turning a cashier’s mundane job into a competitive game with a score (gamification) can make it more fun. While at the same time, an employee can know how well they are doing as an individual and compare to others.  This new “personal leaderboard” process at retailer Target has been reported to have resulted in increased cashier efficiency, lowered checkout times, and increased employee morale.
• The death of the cubicle - rather than employees having offices, the Silicon Valley has been the home of the cubicle. But once firms like Google and Facebook found that cubicles reduce interaction and collaboration between employees (both of which are required for innovation), they took steps to eliminate them and replaced them with an open space arrangement for the team. Google goes even a step further and now offers “standing desks” (like a counter where the employee stands instead of sits), which dramatically increases the number of interactions, while also being healthy for employees.
• Free beer for life – the Silicon Valley startup Hipster offered new hires $10,000, a lifetime supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon, “authentic” skinny jeans, striped bowties, and a pair of Buddy Holly glasses. A little weird, but innovators like weird.
• Interview live from anywhere – most interviews take forever to schedule because they require travel to your site.  This new iphone app from HireVue allows candidates to interview from anywhere at anytime, using their mobile phone or iPad.  Now almost every candidate and manager can find time for an interview. 

Why Should I Be Concerned About This War for Talent?

An analogy between police weapons and military weapons might help you understand why a war for talent requires completely different tools and preparation. Consider the work environment of a policeman. It is a difficult and sometimes a dangerous job but the tools and strategies required to do the job are relatively basic (i.e. equivalent to normal recruiting, retention, and talent management). However, when you’re facing a real war, a policeman would be outgunned. Instead, soldiers with sophisticated equipment and strategies would be required. The tools that they would need in order to win the battle would have to be two or three times more sophisticated than those of a policeman.

The same is true when you’re in a war for talent. You need to overhaul everything and develop completely different and much more powerful talent management tools, strategies, and approaches. You may even need a completely different team of talent management professionals. To make matters more difficult in this current round of the war for talent, the recent growth of social media and the mobile platform now requires the creation of talent management tools that have never existed before. This upcoming “war” will be even more ferocious than the last because of the recent litigation and government actions to eliminate informal “no-poaching” agreements between firms. Firms that in the past have been your “friends” will now be encouraged to raid your employees continually.

Action Steps to Take to Get on a “War Footing”

Now is the appropriate time to begin preparing for this next war for talent. In order to be prepared, you will definitely need to revise your talent management strategy and you will certainly need more than a handful of new tools. The battle will require sophisticated recruiting, powerful onboarding, superior retention, predictive metrics, exciting training, and a leadership development program that can replace lost leaders rapidly. You will also need to develop a competitive analysis function to stay ahead of your competitors and a market research function in order to better understand the changing expectations of your target talent. You may even need new talent management leaders who are agile, who learn fast, and who know how to operate under “wartime conditions.”  It requires a different breed and many on your staff may not be ready for it.

There Won’t Be Much Advance Warning Before This Power Shifts to Employees and Applicants

Obviously you won’t receive a formal announcement, so unfortunately, by the time you realize that you’re actually involved in a war for talent, it may be too late. You simply won’t have time in the midst of the battle to renew your strategy, your staff, and your talent management approaches. Things that you have taken for granted over recent years like a high applicant flow, complacent candidates, and low turnover may completely turnaround in a few months. Workers who have recently demanded security will shift their expectations to include challenge, innovation, development opportunities, and an opportunity for wealth through stock options. And unless you have good metrics, you won’t realize until months afterward that the changes have occurred.

But it Seems Calm Now Where I Work!

If you work in nowhere, smaller town, USA, for example, you might think that this author is crazy because the high unemployment rates where you are means that candidates are still begging for jobs in your town. But you should also be aware that if you had been a talent manager in the mineral-rich areas of Montana, Alberta Canada, or Western Australia, you too at one time had little difficulty finding skilled labor. That is until all of a sudden, you experienced a dramatic shift in the competition for labor. You may not see the war for talent appearing at your doorstep for a longer period of time if your firm trains its own workers or if you hire mostly hourly workers with basic skills. However, if any part of your operation requires technologists, mathematicians, scientists, or experts in monetization or social media, you’ll soon find that your current approaches to talent management will become ineffective. And as unemployment rates continue to drop and the housing/mortgage crisis subsides, finding top talent will become difficult everywhere.

What Are the Foundation Causes of a War for Talent?

A war for talent is a relatively recent phenomenon because in the past, finding and applying for jobs was a slow paper- and mail-driven process. But now that almost anyone can be found on the Internet and interested people can find and apply for dozens of jobs within an hour, fighting over talent has become common. These “war conditions” occur when there is continuous rapid change in the marketplace due to intense competition. And as a result, employee skills need to be updated continually. In this situation, the shortage is not the number of people available (there may be many) but the number who have the required advanced skill sets. So, a war for talent is a skills shortage not a people shortage. For example, today if you need advanced skills in technology, oil and minerals, medical research, and social media you are likely to find plenty of labor available (due to high unemployment rates) but finding people with the right skills, in the right location with right performance levels for these critical jobs may be a continuous battle.

Final Thoughts

Many of the professionals who currently work in talent management were not in the field when the original war for talent occurred during 1999 and 2000. To those and others that may have forgotten what it was like, remember that even though talent management received a great deal of attention and boatloads of money, it was not a good time.  If you weren’t prepared, days were long and hectic and even with unlimited resources, it was a struggle to hire and retain even mediocre workers. If you don’t think the war for talent can be stressful and even ugly, connect with someone on your network who worked at Cisco, HP, or Intel during the late 90s or today at Zynga, Facebook, or Twitter.

Like it or not, the war for talent is returning and it is already at ferocious levels in the Silicon Valley and in other high-growth areas around the world. These tremendous differentials in talent demand between different business units and regions may even force large global firms to adopt a dual talent management strategy — one where you simultaneously manage for both slow and fast growth at the same time. So if you skip over this warning, please remember later on that you read it here, when there was still time to prepare.

by Dr. John Sullivan

6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

You're the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day. Here's how to become the strategic leader your company needs.

In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it's time for you to "be strategic." Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting "being strategic," because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you're not alone. Every leader's temptation is to deal with what's directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you'll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you're on is leading off a cliff. 

This is a tough job, make no mistake. "We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It's hard to be a strategic leader if you don't know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what's required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Anticipate 

Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:

• Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
• Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
• Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better

Think Critically

“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herdlike belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:

• Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
• Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
• Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions

Interpret 

Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for a fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution.  A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:

• Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
• Encourage others to do the same
• Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously

Decide

Many leaders fall prey to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:

• Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
• Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
• Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views

 Align

Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge.  To pull that off, you need to:

• Understand what drives other people's agendas, including what remains hidden
• Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it's uncomfortable
• Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support

Learn

As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by.  You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure--especially failure--are valuable sources of organizational learning.  Here's what you need to do:

• Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
• Shift course quickly if you realize you're off track
• Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight

Do you have what it takes?

Obviously, this is a daunting list of tasks, and frankly, no one is born a black belt in all these different skills. But they can be taught and whatever gaps exist in your skill set can be filled in. I'll cover each of the aspects of strategic leadership in more detail in future columns. But for now, test your own strategic aptitude (or your company's) with the survey at http://www.decisionstrat.com/. In the comments below, let me know what you learned from it.

How Minority Firms Achieve Equal Federal Contracting Success

The U.S. government is the world’s largest single purchaser of goods and services, offering a worthwhile market opportunity for many small businesses—including minority-owned firms. Federal goals for agency spending with minority-owned firms as well as the 8(a) program, which offers restricted competition for qualified firms, can help minority-owned firms gain experience and greater contracting opportunities.

A recent survey conducted among small business owners who are active federal contractors1 shows that they are working harder for less return than they were a year ago. A new report, Women and Minority Small Business Contractors: Divergent Paths to Equal Success, focuses on key trends among minority-owned firms in federal contracting. This report, published by American Express OPEN’s Victory in Procurement (VIP) program, finds that while minority business owners who are active contractors have reached the same level of contracting and overall business success as all active small contractors, success has come with a higher price tag.

Notable survey findings include:
 •Minority-owned active contractors have achieved the same level of procurement and business success as all active small contractors. Over one-third (37 percent) of minority active contractors have received $1 million or more in federal contracts to date, identical to the 38 percent of all active contractors who have reached the same level of procurement success. In addition, 20 percent of minority contractors employ 50 or more workers and 41 percent have $1 million or more in annual revenues, virtually the same as the 18 percent and 47 percent seen among all active small business contractors.
 •That equal success has come with a significantly higher price tag. On average, active contractors invested $103,827 in staff and financial resources seeking federal contracting opportunities during 2010. During that same period, minority contractors spent fully 35 percent more seeking those same opportunities—a total of $139,709. In addition, the overall investment small businesses made seeking federal contracts increased by 21 percent from 2009 to 2010, and it increased even more among minority-owned firms (29 percent).
 •Minority business owners report that special procurement designations or certifications have proven to be very helpful in getting contracts. Self-certifications as well as qualified designations can increase procurement opportunities for many small firms. Over eight in 10 (81 percent) of minority-owned firms have one or more of these designations, compared to 70 percent of all active contractors. The most helpful certifications for minority contractors are 8(a) status (65 percent have found it very or extremely useful), service-disabled veteran status (61 percent very/extremely helpful), and veteran status (48 percent).
 •Minority business owners don’t go it alone and are more likely to have been helped by their peers. Most small business owners who are active federal contractors agree that there has not been a single turning point to procurement success, just a long journey in which perseverance was the key. That said, however, nearly one in three (29 percent) minority business owners say that finding another business owner who shared their experiences with them was a turning point, a larger share than the 22 percent of all business owners who pointed to peer support as a turning point.

Other key findings in the report include the finding that minority business owners are much more likely than the average active small business contractor to point to agency OSDBU officials as having had a positive impact on their contracting success. This analysis also shows that it took minority business owners longer to win their very first federal contract: an average of 1.7 years and 6.1 unsuccessful proposals before notching their very first victory in procurement, compared to 1.3 years and 4.4 unsuccessful bids among all small firms.

Finally, while the investment that minority business owners have made in seeking contracting opportunities has increased higher than average between 2009 and 2010, minority firm success rates have actually improved by 10 percent, compared to an overall 8 percent decline among all small firms. And subcontracting success rates have declined at a lower rate, down 12 percent among minority firms compared to a 27 percent decline overall.

This report is the second in a series of four reports that will be published from the second annual survey among active small business federal contractors. The first, Trends in Federal Contracting for Small Businesses, focused on the overall situation for small firms in the federal marketplace today as well as key trends seen over the past year. Other upcoming reports will focus on how strategies and outcomes change with level of procurement experience, and what lessons can be shared from firms that focus on subcontracting as a procurement strategy.

To download and read the entire 11-page report click here, and to learn more about American Express OPEN’s VIP program, visit www.openforum.com/governmentcontracting.

An active contractor is defined as a business that is registered on the Central Contractor Registry to do business with federal agencies and is either currently performing on a federal contract or has performed on a contract within the past five years.
Article taken from Open Forum.

6 Things That Will Make Your Office a Better Place to Work

It may be a high-class problem, but many companies are so focused on getting the job done that they never really take the time to invest in the place where that actually happens. You don't need a giant ball pit to have the kind of office where employees are happy to spend their time. I’ve listed six suggestions that will considerably improve your office culture, and are also significantly easier to routinely clean than a ball pit.

1. Sunlight

Don't get lazy and leave your blinds closed after the midday glare. When you’re pulling long hours, there's nothing that makes you feel more like your life is slipping away than to enter work in daylight and leave into the blackest night. Your employees shouldn't mind putting in the time, but they should be able to experience the physical cues to its passage as our species has for millenia.

2. Couches

This is especially necessary when your company has become large enough that employees sit grouped in their respective departments. Couches provide a location for casual inter-team interaction. This nongoal-oriented exposure to other sections of the business is part of what makes a startup so special, and unfortunately, growth can often undermine this. At Thrillist, we really value that small-company mentality whereby each employee feels as though they are connected to many elements of what’s happening with the business. (Read more on corporate culture.)

3. A legit toolbox with a cordless drill

There is a tremendous amount of normal wear and tear going on in any office. And nothing makes a space look more generally shoddy than cabinets missing handles, un-hung pictures collecting dust in a pile or wild wires snaking everywhere. If you have a decent set of normal tools, replacing that handle, sinking that nail and stapling that wire to the baseboard are quick and easy tasks. The collective impact of these trivial tasks will prevent your $90-per-square-foot, world-beating HQ from looking like Garbagetown.

4. Employee-celebrating decorations

Your company is only as good as the people in it, so what could be more appropriate than to illustrate this in the very space where the work is taking place? In our editorial pit for example, we have a large painting of one of our senior editors Bruce Lee’d-out with nunchucks, as well as an epic 6x8 ft. rug of our very first employee, David Blend, covering our floor. Beyond providing hilarious opportunities for walking-all-over-you jokes, these decorations show that our office is a place that’s all about its people, and that they are appreciated. (Get more tips on rewarding employees.)

5. Games and booze

When all the work is done, it’s great for people to chill out with one another, set aside the linear thinking of the day, and let their thoughts, observations and ideas flow while they unwind. And how better to entice your employees to stick around than with a game of shuffleboard, and any office's signature cocktail, the “what-we-got-tini”? Some of the most innovative ideas I've ever heard from my staff have been said while trying to negotiate the maddeningly inconsistent rebound angles of a broken-down bumper pool table.

6. A full office library

Just kidding. Unless the books can teach us to code some new programming language, we sell our books for beer (see No. 5).

Adam Rich is co-founder of Thrillist. Follow him on Twitter at AdamMatthewRich.

Photo credit: Thinkstock
Find more articles from Open Forum.

10 Steps to Getting More Done In Your Day

Every day, your to-do list seems to grow. And in this business climate of information overload and constant interruptions, it has become increasingly difficult for small business owners to get anything accomplished. Not to mention, instead of technology increasing your productivity, it often seems to weigh you down. How are you supposed be proud of what was accomplished today and not just be frustrated?

Here are 10 steps to getting more done in a single day. (After you get your cup of coffee, of course.)

1. Do not start the day by checking e-mail, voice messsages or social media feeds. This will suck you in a direction you do not want to go, and is the surest way to get your day off to a bad start.

2. Start by completing two things on your list that must get done today. Do the hard or unpleasant stuff first. Make sure whatever the tasks are, they will have a significant impact on your business and are part of the critical path to other business goals and objectives.

3. Make decisions and take action. Procrastination never pays off, so make the tough decisions first. Say "no"  more often than you say "yes", and don’t even think about saying “maybe.”

4. Deal with every e-mail once. Read an e-mail and take action on it now. Don't save it for later or leave it in your inbox. File it in the appropriate subfolder if it is needed for later reference.

5. Focus on doing one thing at a time. Believe it or not, multitasking can cause brain damage. The brain actually  doesn’t do multiple things at one time, but instead just switches very quickly. This does not improve your overall productivity.

6. Control distractions. Turn off the e-mail and social media notifications, beeps, ringtones and visits to your office. If you need to use a software tool that turns off your access to the Internet, install it. Limit or rotate the information you read.

7. Stay off the Internet, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter unless you have a plan. This is the fastest way to kill your productivity since you can drift on these sites forever. Know why you are using these tools and how it will help your business, and always set a time limit for this activity.

8. Do not enter a meeting without a written agenda and a stop time. And in some meetings, have everyone remain standing. Document action items and assignments, and end early if you can.

9. Delegate to others. Improving your productivity means utilizing the other people in your organization to take full responsibility for their own tasks. Unless you set up an assigned hierarchy, you will always be stuck with all the tasks.

10. Recharge. If technology would have its way, most small business owners would work 24/7.  Set a time limit on work and ensure there are place in your life which are an oasis so you can recharge daily.

How do you get the most out of your day?

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Article from Open Forum.

Women-Owned Firms Make Strides in Federal Contracting

The U.S. government is the world’s largest single purchaser of goods and services, offering a worthwhile market opportunity for many small businesses—including women-owned firms. The 5 percent federal goal for agency spending with women-owned firms, as well as the newly-launched Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program in particular, can offer women-owned firms greater contracting opportunities.

A recent survey conducted among small business owners who are active federal contractors1 shows them to be working harder for less return than they were a year ago. A new report, Women and Minority Small Business Contractors: Divergent Paths to Equal Success, focuses on key trends among women- and minority-owned firms in federal contracting. This new report, published by American Express OPEN’s Victory in Procurement (VIP) program, finds that women business owners who are active contractors have reached the same level of contracting and overall business success as all active small contractors, with a similar level of effort—but they have not yet found that certification as a woman-owned small business (WOSB) has helped them achieve that success. Further, the pinch that all small firms are feeling over the past year with respect to fewer bidding opportunities and lower success rates have impacted women-owned firms even more severely than average.

Notable survey findings include:
 •Women-owned active contractors have achieved the same level of procurement and business success, with a similar level of effort, as all active small contractors. Over one-third (35 percent) of women active contractors have received $1 million or more in federal contracts over their lifetime of federal procurement activity, virtually identical to the 38 percent of all active contractors who have reached the same level of procurement success. In addition, 19 percent of women contractors employ 50 or more workers and 42 percent have $1 million or more in annual revenues, very similar to the 18 percent and 47 percent seen among all active small business contractors. Further, it took women business owners an average of 1.2 years and 4.0 unsuccessful bids to notch their very first victory in procurement, virtually the same as the 1.3 years and 4.4 bids seen among all small businesses.

 •Recent prime contracting bidding activity and success rates have declined for all small businesses, and even more significantly for women-owned firms. Over the past three years (2008-10) the level of bidding activity and the success rates for active small business contractors have declined compared to the 2007-09 period: prime contracting bidding activity is down 47 percent and prime bidding success rates are down 8 percent, and subcontracting bidding activity and success rates have declined 48 percent and 27 percent, respectively. The decline is even more severe among women business owners, especially with respect to prime contracting, where bidding activity has declined by 55 percent and success rates have fallen by 17 percent.

 •Women-owned firms are more likely than average to have a special procurement designation or certification. Getting on the GSA schedule has been most helpful, but being self-certified as a WOSB has not yet opened contracting doors. Self-certifications as well as qualified designations can increase procurement opportunities for many small firms. Over eight in 10 (82 percent) women-owned firms have one or more of these designations, compared to 70 percent of all active contractors. Women business owners are most likely to have self-certified as a WOSB (68 percent), gotten on the GSA schedule (24 percent) or qualified for small disadvantaged business/disadvantaged business enterprise (SDB/DBE) status (24 percent). Women business owners find being on the GSA schedule particularly helpful—41 percent of those who are on the schedule say it’s been very or extremely useful for getting federal contracts. Not so much the WOSB status—just over one-third (37 percent) of active women contractors who have self-certified as a woman-owned small business report that the designation has been useful to them, with only 17 percent saying that it’s been very or extremely useful. Of course, up until February 2011 there was no official government WOSB program, so the full impact of this program has yet to be seen.

Other key insights in the report include the finding that women business owners are much more likely than the average active small business contractor to point to agency purchasing officials and outside consultants as having had a positive impact on their contracting success.

This report is the second in a series of four reports that will be published from the second annual survey among active small business federal contractors. The first, Trends in Federal Contracting for Small Businesses, focused on the overall situation for small firms in the federal marketplace today as well as key trends seen over the past year. Other upcoming reports will focus on how strategies and outcomes change with level of procurement experience, and what lessons can be shared from firms that focus on subcontracting as a procurement strategy.

To download and read the entire 11-page report click here, and to learn more about American Express OPEN’s VIP program, visit www.openforum.com/governmentcontracting.

An active contractor is defined as a business that is registered on the Central Contractor Registry to do business with federal agencies and is either currently performing on a federal contract or has performed on a contract within the past five years.

Photo credit: Thinkstock

4 Ways to Better Manage Gen-Y

By now the lower ranks of the proverbial corporate ladder have been completely taken over by Generation-Y, a group of people roughly between the ages of 18 and 29 years. Much has been made about the unique characteristics that define this generation, from their constant need to be connected, to their rather conservative perspective on the market. Just like the generations before them, there is also well-documented tension between Gen-Y and their older counterparts. Gen-Y is often perceived by some as being lazy, having a sense of entitlement and lacking in social skills. Regardless of your position, the simple fact is that soon this generation will assume the responsibility of middle-upper management, and their performance will largely determine the success of our economy in the next few decades.

According to Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, Gen-Y will make up approximately 75% of the global workforce by 2025! So there is incentive to better understand and prepare young professionals for the next steps in their career (As well as incentive to maximize their productivity in the workplace today!). With that said, here are four ways that you can be a better manager to your Generation-Y employees.

1. Make them feel like they have an impact on your business

Gen-Y wants to be a part of something, and they don’t want to wait 10 years until they are able to do it. Now certainly, this doesn’t mean that every entry-level employee should be given control of the budget or allowed to make strategic decisions for the company. However, there are small things that you can do as a manager that will go a long way in both developing them as leaders and maximizing their productivity. Give them the autonomy to make basic decisions on non-critical components of a project. Create an environment where they are comfortable with and encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions. Even if those opinions aren’t acted on, the sense that their contribution is valued will make them more productive for your company.

2. Build loyalty in smaller doses

Let’s face it, corporate loyalty is almost something that can be taught in a high school history class. Gone are the days of pension programs and employees beginning and ending a career at the same company. Gen-Y workers simply aren’t motivated by traditional means such as higher salary (Of course they are motivated by money, but there are other factors that are considered by them, such as growth opportunity, freedom of social media access and job security). Many companies have unrealistic expectations about corporate loyalty, where the employee is expected to associate with the brand name first and their co-workers second. Gen-Y employees are far more loyal to their immediate co-workers and superiors than to the brand they serve. As a manager even of a small group, create a culture of teamwork, recognition and growth, and you will find your employees far more satisfied, and much less likely to jump ship.

3. Set a clear success path for employees to grow within the company

This one goes hand in hand with building loyalty. Gen-Y employees do not feel loyal to corporations, because they don’t believe that corporations are loyal to them. They came of age during one of the worst economic time periods in our nation’s history, and they have seen their parents and other adult role models let go from companies that they had been ‘loyal’ to for a number of years. In their minds, that loyalty isn’t reciprocated, and their experience in a down economy has taught them to look out for themselves. To this end, members of Gen-Y change their first jobs after just over 2 years! Still, despite Gen-Y’s pessimism, many would prefer to stay with their organizations and grow. They leave because they feel like they have no other choice. So when onboarding Gen-Y new-hires, work with them to determine their career goals, and develop a pathway for them to reach those goals. Designate specific milestones and metrics that will help them to move their way up the ladder and not feel as though they have to leave in order to advance their careers.

4. Embrace their way of doing things

Gen-Y is inherently different from Gen-X and the Baby Boomers. They are a results-driven group, and don’t enjoy the confines of a 9-5 work day. That may draw criticism, but they are ready and willing to work nights and weekends to get their work done. They may be connected to the Internet and social media almost too much, which may lead to distraction at the work place, but it also has given them an unmatched network of information, and they are able to conduct research at light speed when compared to prior generations. Clearly, there is a balance, but by harnessing the characteristics of Gen-Y, you will give them a sense of purpose and value while at the same time improving your business’ success.

Dan Schawbel is the Founder of Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y research and management consulting firm. He is the author of Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future.

Photo credit: inBlubs.com

Staffing Employment Grew 8% in 2011

New Data From the ASA Quarterly Employment and Sales Survey
U.S. staffing companies employed an average of 2.8 million temporary and contract workers per day in 2011, up 8% from 2010, according to data released today by the American Staffing Association. In 2011, U.S. staffing firms hired 12.9 million temporary and contract employees over the course of the year.

“Although the staffing industry employs only two of every 100 nonfarm workers on any given day, it has provided income for millions of American families—about one of every 10 nonfarm workers held a job with a staffing company at some point in 2011,” said Richard Wahlquist, American Staffing Association president and chief executive officer.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, average daily staffing employment totaled 2.98 million workers, up 5.2% from the third quarter and up 5.8% from the fourth quarter of 2010. The October through December period marked eight consecutive quarters of year-to-year staffing job growth since the recession ended in 2009.

“As the economy continued to slowly improve, staffing and recruiting companies played an important role in putting America back to work in 2011, helping close to 13 million people find temporary, contract, or permanent jobs,” said Wahlquist. “Through career counseling, training, employment, and job placement, staffing and recruiting companies add value to peoples’ lives across every sector and occupation.”

Temporary and contract sales totaled $98.3 billion in 2011, 12.4% higher than in 2010. Fourth quarter sales totaled $26.2 billion, up 10.0% from the same quarter last year.

See the ASA Web site for more details about the quarterly ASA Staffing Employment and Sales Survey.

For more information, visit americanstaffing.net/newsroom. You can also follow ASA on Twitter at twitter.com/staffingtweets.

7 Ways to Identify the Perfect Candidate

Your business will rise and fall on the quality of your employees.

Yet, the hiring process can make it difficult to find the right person for the job. If you’re not sure what look for, you can wind up with a candidate that seems perfect but, in reality, can’t do the job well.

You can go with your gut, but your gut has a much greater margin of error than the facts.
Here are seven tips to help you separate the gold from the dross:

Start by truly understanding the job. Know what experience, knowledge, and skills are essential to the position. This includes both “hard” requirements like a bachelor’s degree in economics or a CDL license, but it also includes harder-to-measure requirements such as professionalism and the ability to interact with vendors or clients.

Eliminate candidates that don’t meet the job’s hard requirements first. There’s a good chance that the ambitious genius who dropped out of business school after two years could indeed bring your company to the top of your industry. There’s also a chance that he’s not particularly motivated and will try to get by doing as little as possible. It’s an employer’s market right now, so you have the luxury of filtering out applicants that don’t meet the job’s basic requirements.

Take a closer look at those candidates who provide consistent results. A candidate that claims to have “developed a project tracking system that improved the company’s time to production by 20%” is a better potential candidate than the one who claims to have “worked in project management.” You want candidates that have provided consistent results. Perhaps moreover, you want candidates who are results-aware, and will do what they can to help your company experience results, too.

Narrow the field to a dozen applicants, and then pass them around to others in your organization. If you have time, get input from other managers about those candidates’ resumes. Pull your team together and go through the resumes one at a time. You’ll be surprised just how many warning flags you may have missed that your team or that other managers might be able to identify. This process should reduce your stack by another 50% or so.

Develop a truly useful interview process. The interview process favors candidates who have the ability to sell themselves. You need to find ways to also award candidates who may do a stellar job, but who don’t have the tongue for self-promotion. One way to do this is by working through sample scenarios.

Discuss an actual problem faced in your department recently, and ask the candidate how they would address the problem. You’re not looking for line-by-line solutions; rather, you’re looking for fluency in your field and you’re looking for an effective problem-solving approach from the candidate.
Consider a multi-level and multi-stage interview. You need to get a feel for how the candidate will function as a part of your team, so you need to give them the opportunity to meet the team. This also lets you have an opportunity to get feedback from the team as to the candidate’s appropriateness. And, while your boss may not have many dealings with the candidate on a day-to-day basis, getting his impression of the candidate can help.

Be diligent about references and background checks. There’s only so much you can get from a reference. Many former employers will be hesitant to say more than whether or not the individual was actually employed there. In some cases, you might ask the candidate to provide letters of reference. Background checks serve an equally important purpose. In some industries, the background check may be an absolute necessity for compliance reasons, too.

The recruiting and subsequent interview processes aren’t perfect. There will be times when a candidate looks and feels right, but in the end they just don’t perform. When that happens, you need to be ready to let them go and start from scratch.

By following these principles, however, you’ll reduce the chance of that happening.
Written by Dominick Frasso
www.staffingtalk.com

How To Do More Work In Less Time

Early in my career, I worked for a tyrant. One day he stopped by my desk and asked me how things were going. “I’m working so hard I don’t have time to think,” I replied. (Note to file: this is not a good thing to say to your boss.)

“What time do you get to work?” he asked. I proudly told him that I was there everyday promptly at 9:00 a.m.

 

He was not impressed. “Get here at 8:00–that will give you plenty of time to think,” he said.

(And that’s not the only reason he was a tyrant.)

After that, during a long stretch of self-employment (see my post, “How To Make Money Without A Job“), I discovered a better way. It involves harnessing my biological clock–what scientists call circadian rhythms. These are the body’s daily cycles that put us to sleep and wake us up. By figuring out your best and worst periods, you can cut down on errors and accidents, take less time to complete complicated tasks and improve your creativity.

The first thing you need to determine is whether you are a morning person–what circadian physiologists call a lark–a night owl, or something in between (a hummingbird). If you don’t already know, you can take a survey, like the “Lark, Owl Or Hummingbird Questionnaire,” which downloads here as a PDF from the Cornell University web site.

Your energy level correlates with both body temperature and your body’s production of the hormone serotonin, which regulates mood, says Alan Hedge, professor of ergonomics at Cornell. Depending on the time of day, there can be a dramatic difference in your memory, ability to reason and think.

For optimal results, go to bed and wake up at about the same time each day, says James Maas, co-author with Rebecca Robbins of Sleep for Success! Everything You Must Know About Sleep But Are Too Tired to Ask. Forget all the macho execs who brag about getting by on a few hours. Most people need 7 to 8 hours of shut eye per night, but don’t get it, says Maas. “We’re a nation of working zombies.”

Hummingbirds hit their stride between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., have a mid-afternoon lull, and pick up steam again just before quitting. Here’s how they can organize work around high-energy periods. Larks and owls will need to adapt this schedule accordingly.

Morning peak (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.). This is when we tend to be most alert, cheerful and cooperative. It’s a good time for critical and creative thinking, operating tricky machinery, or doing tasks that you dread. If you’re planning to ask for a raise, catch the boss before 1 p.m.  Page 2.

Article from Forbes.com

How To Ace Your Job Interview

Do not curb your enthusiasm. Win Sheffield, 57, a coach for the last eight years with the career counseling firm The Five O’Clock Club, says a lot of job seekers forget that one of the most crucial parts of interviewing is convincing the hiring manager that you truly desire the job. Interviewers don’t just look for applicants who have the requisite skills and will fit in with a company. Now more than ever, they want candidates who want them.
Sheffield is absolutely right, says Cynthia Bragdon, owner of Urban Indigo, a gift store in Oakland, Calif. “I don’t know why some candidates miss this,” she adds. “Maybe because they think it seems desperate.” She says the most eager applicants quickly make her A list. “If they seem aloof, I get very worried, because any job requires a full commitment,” she explains. “And if they are aloof in an interview, they will probably be aloof to my customers, which is a very bad thing.”

Move up Move down

 

You can get across your enthusiasm in many ways, coaches say. Sheffield suggests that you prepare an arsenal of stories illustrating your skills, strengths and accomplishments. Rather than bragging in a general way about your abilities, describe specific experiences that show you putting those skills to use. You can speak animatedly about the pleasure and pride you took in overcoming obstacles. One advantage of storytelling over plain boasting, Sheffield says: “It’s the interviewer who draws the conclusion.”

In addition to offering stories that illustrate your strengths, use a direct approach and tell the interviewer how thrilled you’d be to work for her and for her organization in particular. Describe other offers or discussions you’ve got going, and let the interviewer know she is your first choice.

Most applicants understand that they should do their homework, learning as much as they can about a company and a job, before going in for an interview. But Cynthia Bragdon says candidates who haven’t done basic research still show up. “If they ask me what the store hours are in the interview, that shows me they don’t give a rip about getting the job,” she says. “Or they’re just plain stupid–and intelligence is a big, big factor for me.”

Ahead of time, take a notebook, jot down a few points to help you remember your best stories and note three questions to ask about the specific job and the company. Then, when the interview starts, ask permission to take notes. Use your notebook as a cheat sheet.

Before the interview winds up, ask where you stand compared with the ideal candidate. Then ask how you compare with other applicants. These questions emphasize how much you want the job and help you take action after the interview.

Write a follow-up note that addresses any ways you were told you might not fit the ideal mold. Robert Hellmann, 49, like Sheffield a coach with The Five O’Clock Club, says a client of his turned a no into a yes through diligent, enthusiastic follow-up. In the interview, the hiring manager confessed concern about the candidate’s lack of an analytic background. The interviewee wrote a follow-up e-mail that described her relevant experience and offered to analyze some sales data. The hiring manager sent her a terse note with some data attached. She analyzed the data and followed up with a phone call requesting another meeting. She got the job, Hellmann says. “In the interview,” he adds, “sometimes the most important thing you can do is get the information you need to sell yourself.”

Article from Forbes.com

Why Recruiting Looks Easy

There is an absolutely wonderful children’s book called 20 Heartbeats about a painter who paints a horse for a very wealthy man. I hate to ruin it for you, but I have to say what happens.

The rich man pays this famous painter to paint his favorite horse. But years go by and the painter won’t finish the painting. The rich man finally shows up at the painter’s house and demands the painting. The painter obligingly whips out a piece of parchment, dashes off a horse in black ink with his brush, and then hands the painting to the rich man. All this takes less than the time of 20 heartbeats.

The rich man is, of course, aghast. He storms after the painter to demand his money back. However, as he walks after the painter, he sees what has been taking so long.

All along the walls are hundreds and hundreds of painted horses. The painter wasn’t procrastinating, he was practicing. The rich man then finally takes a look at the painting that he purchased so long ago, now in his hands. It’s a perfect horse, a horse so real that he whistles to it.

As every art form takes discipline and practice to look easy, every kind of work takes years of diligence to perfect. Recruiting is no different, but few professions look so simple. It’s really hard to pass along a piece of paper, right? You can almost hear hiring managers thinking to themselves, “Yeah, I’ll bet your fingers are really tired from dragging all those resumes from a folder into an email. Real hard work.” Few jobs seem so easy to duplicate.

The end product of recruiting, for one thing, is someone’s else’s work – it is someone else’s talent, ability to interview, and everything else they have that gets them hired that is the end product of the recruiter’s process. It’s hard to pinpoint the recruiter’s exact role in this pseudo-science. Did they identify the talent? Spot them? Find them? Assess them? Understand the job? The culture? Have the right database? The right connections? The right insight into the department or hiring manager psychology? Did they make a lot of calls or know some secret strings to search for in Google? It’s hard to say what it is exactly that the recruiter does and so it’s easy to discount the recruiter’s role entirely.

However, we might be looking at it wrong. A recruiter’s value can’t be found within the process of a single hire. It can’t be found in that space that sometimes spans twenty heartbeats between talking to a manager about a job to the identification of a possible talent.

You have to look at everything that comes before that identification to see the value of a good recruiter. A great recruiter creates the conditions for that magic luck to strike. They don’t talk to a lot of different people. They talk to everyone. They don’t want to know their clients or their company’s competitors. They want to know everything that’s happening at every company in their area. It’s a massive amount of work that requires constant rejection, failure, stress, and is compounded by the minutiae of job offers and the uncertainty of human emotion.

That’s why very few succeed at recruiting. It’s not like there is anything special about that one placement. There is nothing about identifying a candidate and getting them a job offer that requires any particular kind of magic, or even a college degree for that matter. Unlike a beautiful painting, anyone or any recruiter can luck out and make a placement or two. But the background required for long-term recruiting success is much different. It involves the deep study of companies, products, markets, assessment, and professions coupled with a kind of brute force stamina to doggedly pursue the talents of other people. This is the process that forges the recruiter’s talent. This talent, when functioning at its best, is impossible to find.

Article from Recruiter.com

Women: 5 Ways to Supersize Your Business

Women are starting businesses at a record rate, but the number that

break a million in revenues is flat. What's up with that?

The start-up rate of women-owned businesses is soaring while the number in the big leagues—well above $1 million in revenue—is stagnating, according to The American Express OPEN State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. That doesn't serve anyone's interest.  As the Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers, a report from the Kauffman Foundation shows, getting those women-owned businesses on a high-growth track would energize our sluggish economy.

But it’s not happening Why?

I’ve been asking successful women owners what they think is holding back their counterparts, and here’s what they say:

Women need to take more risk. When women start a businesses, they think too far ahead, to the day when they’ll be managing a family as well as a business.They opt for career paths that seem safer and more flexible than running a major corporation.
Liz Etling, CEO and founder of global language service provider TransPerfect, advocates another tack: Go for broke when you are young and have nothing to lose. Don’t worry about what your life will be like in 10 years. Dream big and follow your dreams. When your business grows, so do your options for work/life balance.

And being a high-powered CEO doesn’t mean you can’t be a good mom. “If you want to have a family and run a business, you can — and a growing number of us do,” says Etling.

Women need to get tougher. Nice girls please people. CEOs have to make tough decisions, from firing people to cutting services. In a man, that’s being strong; in a woman it is seen as being bitchy. “If you want everyone to like you, you will have a hard time doing what is necessary,” Etling says.

Men need to get over themselves. At home, men must share in household responsibilities, recognizing that their partner’s career is as valuable as their own. At work, men need to be more inclusive. Networking events shouldn’t be just guy things. Deals are done in informal settings after the conference or out of the office — on golf courses and in the corporate box at the ball game. Yes, some women like sports but a lot are left out of that schmoozing and dealing.

It’s not that men are circling the wagons; they’re just not thinking it through. They’re losing, too, when possibly great deals get left at the clubhouse.

Women need to get over themselves, too. Whether in peer groups, such as the Women Presidents’ Organization or through mentoring women starting out, women need to support and mentor each other, As Sheila Lirio Marcel, CEO of Care.com says, “We must lift as we climb, bring others along with us and collect talented people as we rise.”

Men know how to network. Women seem to be falling behind. That needs to change.

Everyone needs to build more flexible businesses. Let’s start firms that don’t follow the same old businesses model; let’s build a model that can accommodate the differing needs of GenY, parents, Type A workers, and those who want to work reduced hours. You can retain and grow talent by being flexible — flexible about taking a year off for family without losing a rung on the career ladder; flexible in working hours; flexible about telecommuting.

If we don’t restructure business culture, we’re going to keep losing the talented people we’ve paid money to train.

Rosalie Mandel, principal of the alternative investments accounting firm Rothstein Kass, has changed the culture of her company. “Our firm had the vision to see the benefits of flexible scheduling – and it’s never said no. We’ve had an official flex policy since 1999,” she said in an article for The Glass Hammer.

Changes now, in attitudes, awareness, and culture could end the stagnation of small women-led businesses and make them into the economic drivers we need.

Article from inc.com

Face to Face is Still the Best Way to Communicate

My clients are just like yours: They want to Skype, email and text. But here's why you still need face time. 

When the daily avalanche of emails and voice messages gets overwhelming, it’s so tempting to retreat to my office and start typing replies and returning phone calls. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I can make.

No matter what industry we’re in, we’re all in the people business. We’ll only be successful if we really get to know our customers and colleagues. Many of my tech marketing clients are so busy that they now prefer texting to even emails or calls. Skype, WebEx and audio calls are convenient and create the illusion we’re actually having a meeting -- but nothing beats the power of a truly personal, face-to-face connection.

What can you learn from an in-person meeting that you can’t from a virtual one?

1. You're off the record. In Silicon Valley and many other places, there are few private offices. Many of my clients work in cubes and can’t have private telephone conversations with me or anyone else. This means that when I talk to them on the phone, I might not get to hear the most important information they can share: the unique team dynamics or executive’s personality quirks that would make or break our ability to match an expert consultant. Over sushi or a latte or a walk around the block, my clients can let me know more -- with more color -- than they can over the telephone or in an email.

2. Make use of not-so-small talk. Most business conversations are focused on solving a problem quickly and efficiently, while business relationships are built when people take the time to share and learn more about each other. That happens more naturally in person than over the phone or in an email. What cements a bond between people? Small talk about a favorite team, passion for pecan pie, parenting challenges, and the other bits and pieces that make us unique and interesting.

3. Make an impression. I bought a new handbag. It’s faux ostrich and it’s pink. Really pink. I’ve received compliments on it from every woman (and one man) I’ve met with in the past two weeks. I had worried it was perhaps not professional enough for business. But the style and color were bold, “spring-y” and made me smile. Who knew my $60 knock-off handbag would be such a great conversation starter and deliver such a strong personal statement? How do you do that over Skype?

4. Read the body language. Facial expressions often communicate so much more than words. We host consultant coffees and invite a handful of independent consultants to our office in order to better understand the nuances of each professional in a relaxed setting. We need to know what isn’t on the resume that makes each person unique. In their eyes and in their body language, we can see confidence, empathy, fear, friendliness or sincerity. That ability to “read” a candidate beyond their keywords is a huge competitive advantage for us.

5. Learn where the action is. I find out so much when I visit one of my clients in their office. Is the lobby bright and inviting with recent accolades proudly displayed? Do employees seem happy? Is there free juice and healthy snacks in the cafeteria? Brand new Herman Miller chairs in the conference room? Is everyone moving in slow motion or is there a palpable buzz? The environment speaks volumes and may factor into your business proposal or plan. By understanding company dynamics, we can communicate more effectively to meet their needs.
I love new technologies that allow me communicate with others more freely and quickly. But as a business owner, I try to remember customers want to work with someone they can relate to, not just buy from.

And I believe in walking the walk. Want to meet me in person? I'll be at the Faz Restaurant lounge in Pleasanton, California on Wednesday, March 7 between five and seven. Meet my team and join us for a drink. RSVP to @renesiegel.

I’ll be the one with the really pink purse.
Article from inc.com.

8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees

Great employees are reliable, dependable, proactive, diligent, great leaders and great followers... they possess a wide range of easily-defined—but hard to find—qualities.

A few hit the next level. Some employees are remarkable, possessing qualities that may not appear on performance appraisals but nonetheless make a major impact on performance.

Here are eight qualities of remarkable employees:

1. They ignore job descriptions. The smaller the company, the more important it is that employees can think on their feet, adapt quickly to shifting priorities, and do whatever it takes, regardless of role or position, to get things done.

When a key customer's project is in jeopardy, remarkable employees know without being told there's a problem and jump in without being asked—even if it's not their job.

2. They’re eccentric... The best employees are often a little different: quirky, sometimes irreverent, even delighted to be unusual. They seem slightly odd, but in a really good way. Unusual personalities shake things up, make work more fun, and transform a plain-vanilla group into a team with flair and flavor.

People who aren't afraid to be different naturally stretch boundaries and challenge the status quo, and they often come up with the best ideas.

3. But they know when to dial it back. An unusual personality is a lot of fun... until it isn't. When a major challenge pops up or a situation gets stressful, the best employees stop expressing their individuality and fit seamlessly into the team.

Remarkable employees know when to play and when to be serious; when to be irreverent and when to conform; and when to challenge and when to back off. It’s a tough balance to strike, but a rare few can walk that fine line with ease.

4. They publicly praise... Praise from a boss feels good. Praise from a peer feels awesome, especially when you look up to that person.

Remarkable employees recognize the contributions of others, especially in group settings where the impact of their words is even greater.  Additional 4 Qualities.