You'll need to zoom in (Ctrl+) to see the details but the colour coding helps to give an at-a-glance overview of 10 of the most well known brands.
My second pick appeared on Malaysia Tomorrow and was authored by Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica. In Succession Planning: How to Meet Future Talent Needs the authors provide 3 reasons "why you need to immediately implement a succession planning strategy":
"The recency bias error occurs when an assessor (i.e. recruiter, hiring manager, etc.) is overly affected by information that was presented later (more recently) rather than earlier in any given selection process. In contrast, the primacy bias error occurs when an assessor’s selection is made based on information that was presented earlier (primary information) rather than later in a process. And although the effects appear symmetrically opposing, the research shows that they occur because of different reasons, and that their implications can differ drastically. They are not equal but opposite."
He goes on to say that:
"The body of research points to two process models on how decisions are made in the interview process. The first we will describe is the step-by-step (SbS) decision-making model, and the second is the end-of sequence (EoS) decision-making model. We call those models response modes."
My third pick is Jon Ingham's post to Human Capital League: Developing New Talent Management Strategies for 2010. In the post Ingham shares the highlights of two recent pieces of research; IRS Employment Review’s HR roles and responsibilities: the 2010 IRS survey and PWC's 13th Annual Global CEO Survey and provides some interesting anecdotes and stats such as this from PWC: "78% (of CEO's) plan to changes their talent management strategies in the wake of the financial crisis" .
PWC asserts that: "CEOs have begun to reshape not only their strategies, but also their capabilities. It takes strategic flexibility to address risk at a deeper level. And it takes organisational agility to respond to volatility. That doesn’t mean CEOs will become risk averse; rather, they may become more deliberate in examining alternatives, formulating a Plan B, and ensuring they can execute on it"
Ingham himself opines:
"I’m not sure HR appreciates the scale of the challenge (or the opportunity). CEOs want you to make a difference, if you’ve got the ambition and imagination to do this!
The change isn’t all about restructuring and engagement. CEOs want to increase investment in talent management, but they want to manage talent differently too."
I enjoyed Peter Gold's contribution Recruitment 20??: You will sell "product" which appeared on his Social Recruiting Blog. For a long time I've been intrigued by the candidate "aftermarket" concept and the game theory surrounding it. On one hand, for some types of role, the aftermarket provides simple advantages to job seekers (quicker and easier access to employment) and to primary recruiting and secondary recruiting organisations (lower costs) but on the other hand, huge complexity, for example:
Primary recruiting organisation (PRO) - the talent pool trade off. At which point would a PRO be happy to release an "also ran" to another organisation? How does it choose its SRO community? Would the PRO prefer to recommend an "also ran" to its SRO community rather than see that candidate hired by a competitor?
Secondary recruiting organisation (SRO) - aligning supply. How closely do the sourcing and screening practices of the PRO align to those of the SRO? What is the selection/quality gap between the two organisations? Are there "no approach" agreements between the PRO and SRO if an appointment is made?
Candidate - the engagement question. Could the candidate have the same level of committment/desire for the SRO? If appointed would the candidate achieve the same level of performance? Would the candidate be accepted by other employees? How would the offer to recommend affect the candidates perception of the PRO and SRO?
In the UK University system, "clearing" is an established principle that matches students that failed to secure a place at their first-choice institution because of disappointing grades to vacancies at another. As an example of the application of the aftermarket concept based on selection criteria, I'd be interested to know what the Assessment community makes of introducing the concept to the workplace.
My third pick: On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors by Rosabeth Moss Kanter appeared on the Harvard Business Publishing blog. This is a great post on the relationship between social capital and power. In the post Kanter argues that when it comes to getting things done an individual's social networks or "spheres of influence" has more sway than their status within an organisation.
"This changes the nature of career success. It is not enough to be technically adept or even to be interpersonally pleasant. Power goes to the "connectors": those people who actively seek relationships and then serve as bridges between and among groups. Their personal contacts are often as important as their formal assignment. In essence, "She who has the best network wins."
Perhaps not a new concept - the rainmaker, the agent, the broker or fixers like Pulp Fictions' Mr Wolf, have long been features of corporate life but Kanter suggests that every individual can bring their networks to bear in the workplace echoing the sentiments from one of the contributions in my post last week.
Over the past few months StepStone has been working with Bersin & Associates to develop a tool for organisations to benchmark their strategies against best practices in Talent Management.
That tool, www.talentstrategyassessment.com, makes a complex task, really simple. I'd had a go at using the tool myself and found that, after responding to 19 straight-forward questions in less than 10 minutes, I got two things:
A scorecard comparing my strategy to others from Bersin's huge pool of research, with red, amber and green status indicators that alert me to the areas I need to work on
A detailed (29 page) analysis and commentary of my responses with suggestions for improving my talent management strategy.
The scorecard and report covers the core of talent management strategy development:
