This is a fascinating presentation, building on that of Jane McGonigal's featured in Three To See - w/c 24-May-10, in which Priebatsch talks about what we can learn from gaming and about 4 of the 7 dynamics used in game design to influence behaviour:
The Appointment Dynamic
The Influence & Status Dynamic
The Progression Dynamic
The Communal Discovery Dynamic
Is gaming the future of employee engagement in your workplace?
If, as Priebatsch says, the last decade was the decade of social and we're in the decade of game playing then my next two picks are already old-hat.
"The smart phone and the applications associated with it are radically changing the game for advanced, technically savvy recruiters (others need not read on unless you like shaking your head in disbelief). For those not afraid of evolution and innovation, an emerging class of “location aware” social networking applications can and are enabling recruiters to facilitate impromptu face-to-face meetings with top talent outside the structured assessment process."
Sullivan describes three scenarios for what he calls "Real-time meet-ups":
"Coordinated — an impromptu plan to meet is confirmed by phone or text/IM upon learning of a prospect’s proximity.
Directed — no advance plan is communicated, but your actions are directed to ensure a face-to-face encounter.
Coincidence — no advance plan is communicated and no directed actions are taken; you simply take advantage of proximity as it happens."
He also addresses the dis-comfort that some recruiters may feel in using Location Based Services (LBS) as part of their talent acquisition toolkit:
"The idea of cyberstalking may repulse conservative recruiters, but not everyone views taking advantage of technology to facilitate conversion of online relationships to real-world relationships a bad thing. Most social networks provide tools to help users establish privacy boundaries, so using the information when visible to you to facilitate a meeting is within the expectations of the prospect."
Peter Gold made 3 great posts to the Hire Strategies blog this week. From the three I've selected Will Facebook Places screw social recruiting to go alongside Sullivan's post. Gold looks at whether features that allow users of some social media to provide their location (automatically or manually) will impact recruiting and offers comment on both sides of the debate:
"Oh no it won't!
Of course people who use the various social sites know all about the locational aspects and have their privacy settings fully locked down. They are hardly going to publicise they have gone for an interview are they now? So, recruitment will not be impacted at all."
On the other hand...
"Oh yes it will!
People are confused with the locational idea. Social sites are defaulting ON sharing of your location as it adds value to their advertising proposition. Harmless tweets will give away your location regardless of tweet content. People will inadvertently show what they are doing, where they are going etc."
In Three To See this week: The success of random groups, attracting people who are out of your league and post-recession risks.
My first pick is "Strategies: Diversity Wins" from Tom Peters' "Little BIG Things" video series on his blog. In the clip below Peter's tells us that random groups of people have been found to provide better solutions to problems than groups that have been purposefully selected... really.
Are you an imposter? That's the title of my second pick, posted by Andy Porter to the Fistful of Talent blogging community.
Porter urges organisations to decide the quality level of talent that they aim to employee (eg A, B or C players) and then stick with the decision rather than making opportunistic hires from higher levels when they are temporarily cheaper, arguing that:
"Every time an employee is hired for less than they believe they are worth by an organization that suddenly can “afford” top talent, as an employer we're on a slippery slope.If an employer is legitimately underpaying an employee (emphasis on legitimately) they're essentially sending a message to this employee that they're being undervalued - we know it, you know it and we don't care. And no one likes to be undervalued.An employee might accept the situation for awhile but over the long term they're likely to put less discretionary effort into their work and will eventually go to work for an employer who values them more."
And:
"Maybe you're ok with this scenario, but as employers, we do pay in the end either in replacement costs, training, morale or actually paying employees what they're worth."
"The average organization faces an imminent 7 percent productivity loss from the combination of departing top talent and undermanaged recruiting pipelines."
In the post Headworth discusses the practice of buying-up talent as part of a strategy to "crowd-out" competitors, prompting a number of interesting comments from readers about the ethics and business sense of the doing so.
The approach can help organisations to establish and maintain market dominance in hyper competitive situations. However, as several of the comments allude to, the strategy can only work whilst the talent acquired is engaged in employment that continues to meet their aspirations - in other words, the organisation remains their employer of choice. When aspirations are no longer being met and employees see alternative means of achieving them, then the approach is at risk of crumbling. I find this debate fascinating and am interested to see what others make of it.
Sticking with talent strategy, Kim Lamoureaux posted Tackling Your Blockers to the Bersin & Associates blog in which she contends that:
"There are three common scenarios that companies face with blockers.
He is a high performer, however the role would give a high potential a critical experience.
He is a good performer, but there are other individuals who could do the job better.
He is an underperformer and is blocking others from promotion."
Lamoureaux then goes on to offer useful recommendations for dealing with each of the three scenarios before sharing the following insight:
"There are positions in every company that are either critical to certain career paths or that provide high potentials with a key experience. If you can identify what those roles are, you will be able to treat them as “rotational” assignments and set the expectation accordingly. For example, at ARAMARK, the safety leader role is designed as a 2-year rotational assignment. The role offers employees with the opportunity to develop core leadership competencies and exposes them to senior business leaders. It is also recognized as a career builder for high potentials."
In this week's Three To See: Networked organisations, the future workplace and more on ROWE.
My first pick is Matt Alder's interview of Kevin Wheeler for the Social Future blog. Wheeler paints an interesting picture of the informal nature of organisations in the future.
There is some very interesting content in the article and is well worth looking at.
The previous two posts link tenuously to my third pick. In It's Not About ROWE posted to the Three Star Leadership blog, Wally Bock comments on the Flexible Work and Well-Being Study by Phyllis Moen and Erin L. Kelly of the Flexible Work and Well-Being Center at the University of Minnesota.
Bock asserts that the study does not really reflect ROWE (a Results-Only Work Environment):
"Folks, this is not exactly a landmark study. The findings are that a program designed to give workers control over their schedule and work methods (hence, "results-only") gave them more control over their "schedule and decisions about where and when they work.""
On goes to state that:
"The best source for a review of all the issues is Chris Ferdinandi. He wrote a great post last year titled, "Why I don't like ROWE." Don't believe the title. Read the post and comments. And check Chris' slide show, "Smashing the Clock" on Slideshare."
Performance and engagement, nosey HR and strategic pivot points in this week's Three To See.
The relationship between Performance Management and Employee Engagement is neatly illustrated in the Dilbert cartoon below - my first pick of the week.
My second pick, Facebook Is None of HR's Business, was posted by FrankRoche to the KnowHR blog and is entertainingly forthright. The snippets below give a flavour of Roche's rant:
"I have some news for you, HR. You have no business looking at your employees’ Facebook posts. Ever."
And:
"Stop being little Facebook Stalkers and get back to the real work of HR. Solve problems. Help managers be good managers. Then get out of the way. Being an HR Voyeur is just so icky"
Are you an HR voyeur? Is Roche right?
My third pick came via the bNET blog. In HBR Ideacast: The Science of Human Capital, a 14 minute audio interview, Julie Devoll interviews John Boudreau, author of “Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital.” about the pivot points that link corporate strategy to talent strategy. Boudreau does a good job of bringing the concept to life by describing how Disney Corporation has adopted this thinking.
