The Staffing Strategy Connection
CareerXroads®Update - June 2009 - Summer's finally here
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.
Collusive Restraint: We're betting someone is going to jail
Cecilia Kang, writing in the Washington Post this past Wednesday, June 3, announced a Federal Antitrust Probe that is targeting Google, Apple, Yahoo, Genentech and more. Much more.
It might by you.
Remember how proud you were when you snagged
that top performer from your company's biggest
competitor? And this was the third top pro your team
won over from them this year. They obviously were
having retention problems as their new product
pipeline emptied out.
Remember how worried your boss was? She kept asking if you were sure there were no legal non- compete contracts signed by the candidate (or other problems that the company's lawyers were going to have to deal with despite your assurances to the contrary). But you knew you did your due diligence.
It wasn't long after that when word filtered down that your company was going to "stop considering" candidates from three of your fiercest competitors - including the company from which you recently did all that sourcing work - "just for now", she said. There was no notice in writing. Word was quietly shared with the team. No mention was made about where the "decision" came from either but, it sure couldn't have been at your pay grade because you were in a war for talent, right? Or did someone declare a truce?
Remember how ticked you and your team were,
especially since you had been loading the CRM with
prospects from all three firms. Several of them were
ready to come over after nearly a year of building
relationships via events, conferences and the like.
Actually, you don't - You remember
nooothiiiing! This scenario must have been a figment
of your addled brain.
The concern expressed by the Justice Department is that the "practice" is industry wide. According to the article, "By agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly." We don't think that is it at all. We think that as unemployment tops 10%, the public perception about firms that purposely hold their recruiters back from considering qualified candidates is going to play very well - and someone is going to go to jail.
We also don't think we are talking about "Industry Wide" here as code for IT Industry. The discussion may rapidly escalate to the entire "Staffing Industry". And you can bet that if they really get serious and bring some heat to bear on the conversations that take place with third party firms, it will get ugly.
Not for anything but next time you are told not to consider qualified folks from a firm where you have a "Nice" relationship, tell them to #%!@ off - in a "nice" way. In business [in the US anyway] you cannot negotiate a truce with your competitors for talent any more than you can negotiate your product pricing with them.
Your Best New (But Sometimes Unwelcome) Partner: Purchasing
Dr. Michael Kannisto, a CareerXroads Colloquium member heading up BASF's Staffing came to a logical conclusion that with so much renewed emphasis on spending, he predicts we'll see Procurement play an even greater role in staffing during the coming months.
We agree, and Michael's entertaining article in ERE is well worth a read. His advice: Figure out who they are, Establish yourself as the decision-maker, Find a way to work together, Advocate for your customers, and, Share successes publicly makes great sense.
Overall, 86 percent of respondents said that their companies have been forced to initiate cost-cutting measures due to the weakened economy. That is a slight improvement from January, when 92 percent of companies were cutting costs. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
The Constant Debate - Quantity versus Quality: Is it about "Pivotal" Hiring?
We noted an unusual stat this month: Apple and RIM will combine to sell somewhere between 5% to 10% of mobile phones shipped worldwide this year. But Apple will capture 31% of the industry's operating margin dollars, and RIM will represent 35% according to a report by Deutsche Bank analysts Brian Modoff and Jonathan Goldberg.
When examining recruiting activity with the same attitude, we might want to examine what positions among your total hires are "pivotal" (see Investing in People by John Boudreau and Wayne Cascio for more detail about this concept) - i.e. jobs having the most impact on the performance of the firm. It is not always as obvious as one might imagine.
Tarred By The Same Brush: Do Your RPO Contracts Cover Their Management Practices?
Imagine for a moment that you outsourced some of your less critical (and certainly less pivotal) corporate functions to a PEO (Professional Employer Organization). Security and cleaning would be the obvious but cafeteria, assembly, even routine programming and other professional activities might easily fit the bill. Heck even recruiting and HR are possibilities.
That was the easy part. The next part isn't so easy to imagine. Assume that the firm that won your purchasing department's low bid had an inappropriate approach to managing their employees (not yours, they just work on your property): fear. Try to imagine this firm hiring illegal immigrants or, perhaps people with backgrounds that wouldn't pass muster for other bona fide reasons and then ensuring their performance and retention by withholding their pay, threatening them with fines and deportation, charging them exorbitant rates for food, rooms and more - much more. Not possible in America you say?
Workforce Management's Article, Staffing Firm Indicted for Labor Trafficking, Immigration raises some interesting points about the need to provide oversight on the recruiting and management practices of any vendor who brings employees to work on your site - whether or not you are "responsible."
Staffing Standards: Developing For The Long Haul
SHRM, designated in February 2009 as a Standards Development Organization (SDO), launched a Task Force initiative in May to develop standards for Staffing and Workforce Planning. This is one of four HR- related task forces to be launched in 2009. Eventually all of HR will be covered.
Nearly 150 stakeholders: practitioners, product and service developers, academics, lawyers and even hiring managers and job seekers registered their interest to participate in one or more of three initial standards by the close of business on June 5.
While this effort will take years not months and potentially develop hundreds of relevant standards for every aspect of Staffing and Workforce Planning (not to mention HR). SHRM membership is NOT required. The process is modeled on (and eventually approved by) the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The approach welcomes participation from many stakeholders- developers (i.e. consultants, associations, suppliers, vendors, academics, etc.) practitioners and customers (hiring managers and even job seekers) as well as professionals with a general interest (where international support is sought as the standards may eventually become approved by the International Standards Organization [ISO 9001].)
Gerry is involved and will lead the Staffing Task Force in its early stages. While the invitation "calling for participation" is officially closed for the initial standards, a few more academics, hiring managers and job seekers will possibly be added in the short term. In the long term, stay tuned as new calls for standards development are announced.
Copyright MMC Group © 1996-2009 all rights reserved.CareerXroads
The Staffing Strategy Connection
By Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler
mmc@careerxroads.com - 732-821-6652
