By Gerry Crispin, SPHR and Mark Mehler
mmc@careerxroads.com
Since 1996 our Update has been published 10-12
times each year and aims to share commentary,
observations, perspectives and data we come across
during our staffing adventures. We hope you continue
to enjoy it and pass it on to friends. All are
invited to register for the Update for free. Coupled with our
Bellwether, a provocative monthly look at trends we
share with CareerXroads Colloquium members,
we are always willing to challenge the accepted
wisdom or poke a little fun at the staffing industry and ourselves in the process.
We invite you to keep in touch
and join us during the year at the various conferences where we speak or simply attend.
CareerXroads Latest Source of Hire Report Confirms Several Long Held Notions but Raises Questions about Collection Methods.
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CareerXroads 7th Source of Hire study is officially released this week. Looking under the hood at where more than 300,000 hires in 49 companies came from can sometimes raise more questions than answers but two sources (internal movement and referrals) remain the critical foundation for most staffing functions.
We think the implications of a growing corporate Direct Sourcing component will play out in the next 18 months. Lots of hype last year about social networks, search engine advertising and more have yet to show up in the results.
Why Newspapers Lack Relevance to Staffing - or Anything Else.
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Caught a great 1 minute YouTube presentation by Sam Zell, Tribune Company's chief executive, with serious foot in mouth disease. Leaders like this are one reason why Newspapers have so much difficulty competing for staffing dollars.
Companies with goals to make more money and little else will most likely not. A tough bird, Zell won't go down without a fight but the realization that many of his subordinates will be sacrificed to his personal ego needs gives one pause.
Recruitment Advertising: Moving in New Directions
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The newest specialty Classified Intelligence Report (CIR) on the Recruitment Market by Peter Zollman's firm - put together with the help of several outstanding writers and partners (including ERE) is excellent. The report offers an extensive review of the alliances between newspapers and Monster.com, Yahoo HotJobs and CareerBuilder; a solid look at the use of video in recruitment and a well thought out discussion of how social networks are changing the face of recruitment and recruitment advertising.
These CIR specialty reports have a cost but are well worth it for companies seeking quality insights. CIR has a strong following among newspaper classified professionals but it would be wrong to assume that the information is limited to that category. It's a snapshot of the Industry's focus in 2007 and contains seeds for the future.
Avatar Interviews Not Ready for Primetime
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A short New York Times article by Matt Villano tracks one person's experience being interviewed on 2nd Life. The author concludes that with all the methods for engaging and assessing candidates, this one wouldn't end up high on their list.
We agree. As a branding tool we are cool with 2nd Life but as an efficient tool for recruiting other than gamers, the Avatar approach needs another generation or two of improvements.
Guest Workers: Almost an Impossibility in the US
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Our current immigration laws allow 66,000 guest worker [H2B] visas - basically folks who come to the US on a seasonal work visa and then return to their country. For years an additional 50,000 exceptions were made for workers that return year after year. Since congress couldn't agree on immigration reform, the exemption has expired and hundreds of small businesses are unable to get the workers they need to stay open -- legally. They are either shutting down or forced to hire illegal labor. As the article points out, the hiring of guest workers isn't a means to reduce cost. Fair wages are paid and the workers pay taxes. See what USA Today has to say about the issue.
We know that plenty of our citizens and law makers are flat out against any form of Guest Worker program - let alone restoring the exemptions to workers who have successfully jumped though all the immigration hoops year after year. They cite concerns about a loss of jobs for American citizens. We think the folks who oppose the guest worker program should actually work in one of the jobs for a week.
Looking for Boomers? Uncle Sam Is.
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Apparently the Internal Revenue Service, the Peace Corps and the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Disaster Relief would like to hire boomers. See MSNBC report.
We have a hard time thinking about boomers in the heavy lifting side of some roles in disaster relief but a Boomer Peace Corps is an ironically retro trend.
Medical Tourism Starting To Appear in Health Coverage
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This SHRM article by Kathy Gurchiek noted that "eleven percent of surveyed organizations cover medical tourism in the health care they offer to full- or part-time employees." The survey, focusing on a growing trend to support employees traveling to countries such as India, Thailand or Singapore for treatment, was based on 400 responding members of the IFEBP.
In addition, the survey also listed alternative therapies
covered by 13% of the respondents. These included:
Staffing functions should review their (and their competitors) medical benefits to see if they remain competitive. We believe the trend to medical tourism is a recognition of the declining capabilities of the US health system to support employees cost effectiveness.
US Job Losses Raise Recession Worries
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January is usually one of the biggest months for advertising new jobs but according to the Christian Science Monitor, hiring all but stopped last month: "Service employers, who provide the paychecks for more than 8 in 10 US workers, didn't actually lose jobs for the month. But they added just 34,000 new jobs, down sharply from 143,000 in December and well below the four-year average of about 158,000 a month. The result: After factoring in losses in non-service industries, the economy overall lost 17,000 jobs, the first monthly loss since August 2003."
In a related but oddly different view by a Reuters writer US productivity rose in the fourth quarter because employers sharply cut the number of hours their employees worked.
Are your IT employees eligible for overtime?
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IBM switched 7,600 IT employees, nearly 6% of it workforce, to non-exempt status last month according to this Workforce management article. The driving force was a $65 million settlement. According to a linked report, firms settled more than 300 million last year on misclassified workers.
Apparently some Fair Labor Practices still aren't common sense. The issue of non-exempt/exempt classification is one of the most common questions SHRM's help desk responds to and we're talking thousands here.
Where you’ll find us next:
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Full details of CareerXroads’ schedule can be found here.
Good Hunting! Gerry and Mark
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Recruiters and job seekers have permission to copy and distribute or post this update in full or part with the following restrictions. a) Let us know and b). We would appreciate your providing proper credits regarding CareerXroads including our names, URL and e-mail.
Links to CareerXroads are much appreciated but we provide no reciprocal agreements with any site. We want to maintain a level of objectivity free from even perceived conflict of interest regarding our opinions. We have no direct relationship with any job board or career site.
Gerry and Mark work full time consulting, educating and discovering how talent and opportunity connect through emerging technology. If we can be of help, you know how to reach us.
Copyright MMC Group © 1996-2008 all rights reserved.CareerXroads
The Staffing Strategy Connection
By Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler
mmc@careerxroads.com - 732-821-6652