I came across this article on ERE.net a few days ago and thought how relevant and timely it is to remind us about some of the perils of the Peter Principle when it comes to redeploying staff, in these credit-crunched downward facing times.

During restructure, whether people are moved upward, downward or sideways we always need to keep in the back of our minds that past performance - if not appropriately and accurately measured or linked to personal development plans, is no sure sign of success in a new role.  Especially when that new role requires behaviours or competencies from the individual that they have not needed to demonstrate previously.

If you are not using performance management techniques to give you that background knowledge, then you need to use assessment tools to inform your decision making but how often do these tools ever form part of the mix - especially in a sideways or downward move?  

By not using the right tools you run the risk of rebuildiing your organisation with the wrong people in the wrong places.   If the restructuring plan involves outplacement then you run the risk of outplacing good people and opening your organisation up to legal challenges on the criteria for outplacement.  

With that in mind, what tools will you use to inform your decisions?  

I found this great posting on ERE.net with a link to a short, 3 minute video explaning the relevance of social media to recruiters and what candidates are looking for.

Check out this other posting to ERE to learn from the experience of a recruiter using social media.

Over the course of my career the phrase 'war for talent' has been a constant.  Sure, it wanes everytime we have an economic downturn such as the dotcom bubble or the current crunch, and then picks up again when we're over the bump.  

History tells us that this happens in real wars when, for periods of time, one side enjoys an advantage over the other only to find that circumstances have changed and their dominance is undermined.  This pattern repeats until one side achieves and retains an unfair advantage over the other and momentum carries it to victory.  An aggressive defense, where no ground is given-up easily, can be a useful strategy to ensure that when the tide turns, there is not so much ground to make up.

So it goes in the war for talent.  Organisations wishing to be 'first out of the blocks,' seeking to grab market share at the sign that the economy is improving, obviously need to retain key talent.  However they also need to retain good reputations as employers and to continue to promote their employer brand in order to attract talented individuals away from competitors when the the financial and labour markets start to unfreeze.

In his recent posting, Graeme Martin makes some interesting observations about the importance of employer branding in a recession.          

I thought that this article was interesting.  It picks up on one of the panel sessions at the recent Best Practice Forum in the UK.

It talks about key skills for the modern economy and how that relates to motivating Generation Y.