Harris shares insight from interviews with business and HR leaders conducted as part of recent research into high impact HR organisations, noting that:
"When senior business executives think of their most critical business challenges we found that they were looking at tomorrow, not today. HR Leadership is often (and rightly so) focused on business challenges organizations are facing today."
The table below, which comes from the post, highlights this difference in priorities.
Harris goes on to say that business leaders have expressed a need of four things from their colleagues in HR:
My next pick came via Chris Young over at the Maximize Possibility blog. Dan McCarthy made an interesting post to his Great Leadership blog: Managing the "Toxic High Performer" in which he discusses the importance of taking an approach to performance management that values both the results AND behaviours of employees.
My final pick, 15 Competitive Intelligence Tools for Recruiting, was posted to the Talent Buzz blog by Jason Buss and lists resources that can be used in "the systematic gathering of open information and analysis to provide a better understanding of a competitor firm’s structure, culture, behavior, capabilities, and weaknesses."
There are some great tools catalogued in the post that can be used not only to understand competitor organisations, target potential hires and build talent pipeline, but also to inform your organisation's employer brand protection and development programmes.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Andy Headworth, founder of Sirona Consulting and one of the top rated bloggers in the talent space, to find out what he thinks is good about the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show and what the next 12 months hold for HR practitioners.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview recruiting futurologist and founder of MetaShift, Matt Alder to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Robert Symons, StepStone Solutions Director of Sales for UK & Ireland to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show.
CE> Why are you going to HR Software Show this year?
RS> StepStone Solutions is a regular at the CIPD HR Software Show and, as our portfolio of products and services has expanded, we've moved to the ground floor of the expo hall as it gives us an opportunity to highlight the breadth of our Talent Acquisition and Talent Management solutions.
I am planning to attend on the first day to ensure we get off to a great start, see how the pre-booked consultations are going and to hear what current and prospective customers have to say. One of the things that I'm curious about is the increasing interest in talent management solutions from particular sectors over the last 6 months - I'm keen to learn if that is specific to those sectors or reflects broader needs.
I'm also looking forward to having a bit of fun with the Table Football competition that we've organised to celebrate the World Cup.
CE> What is good about the show?
RS> It's a great show to talk to a real cross-section of people across HR, IT and Procurement from Directors, Head of Talent and Resourcing and Heads of Procurement through to the people who are on the ground sourcing and managing talent. From an attendee's perspective it offers access to a range of providers and can prove very effective in shaping shortlists for coming projects. Also when meeting the suppliers face to face you can understand more about the quality of staff, culture and dynamism which are factors which cannot always be effectively gleaned from a website or glossy brochure.
From a supplier view point it offers us an opportunity to showcase our solutions, build our brand and demonstrate how committed we are to servicing the UK market with local solutions supported by local staff who really understand the market.
CE> What are the priorities for employers over the next 12 months?
RS> The key aspect for employers will be striking a balance between cost efficiencies and ensuring they manage talent effectively whilst focusing on business improvement. Organisations will continue to struggle to find high quality people even though the market is awash with candidates. Meanwhile high performers will need to be managed carefully as organisations continue to optimise their business. Employers will need to be agile to respond to the fluctuating market conditions and have flexible resources quickly able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise without carrying people on the bench.
Those companies who are rigid or constrained will be slower to respond, allowing more agile competitors who can target skills and flex resources more effectively to maximise opportunities and take market share. Employers also need to address the difficult questions around structure to ensure business is lean enough to drive profitability but supported enough to be efficient and deliver value to customers.
CE> How should HR respond to these priorities?
RS> A priority will be to ensure that talent initiatives drive value. There will be continued competition for budgets for projects and the money will go to those projects providing the most business value or strong evidence for a return on investment. HR needs to focus on demonstrating tangible business benefits through optimising talent and ensuring that the business has the necessary skills and resources to compete in the tough market conditions. Analysis of skills, improved performance management and effective use of compensation management will enable HR to respond and support the business moving forward.
Tight control of recruitment coupled with a focus on quality not quantity will also address the changing organisation requirements as many companies seek to upgrade staff to address the tougher market conditions and to be ready for the upturn.
Talent inventories, recruiting trends and pivot points in this week's Three To See.
A common, yet solvable, internal mobility challenge is incisively illustrated in the Dilbert strip below - my first pick:
My next came via Jason Buss at The Talent Buzz and is the 2010 Trends in Recruiting report from LinkedIn. Referencing a survey of 1,100 in-house recruiters in six countries (Australia, Canada, India, Netherlands, UK and US), the report findings include the following suggestions:
Improving "Quality of Hire" is the most important consideration when purchasing recruiting solutions (rated by 86% of respondents)
More than 25% agreed that passive candidate recruiting is currently an important part of their sourcing mix
Pipelining and pooling talent undertaken by a majority of respondents with only 5% saying that they do not do this
Recruiters are most concerned that their competitors will achieve market advantage by using social recruiting techniques more effectively, building and nuturing a strong talent pool and investing in their employer brand
It is the "global competitive hot buttons" (slide 11 of 15) from the report that I find most interesting because of the way that it breaks down eight answers to the question "What are you most nervous your competitors might do?" by each of the six countries.
My final pick this week, The New Science of Human Capital on the HarvardBusiness YouTube Channel, has some interesting commentary from John Boudreau on how organisations should build their approach to managing talent around the "pivotal" moments, people or positions that make a difference to the execution of business strategy.
As part of our "Talent Crowd" series, I interview Robert Symons, StepStone Solutions Director of Sales for UK & Ireland to find out what he thinks is in store for HR practitioners over the next 12 months and why he is going to the CIPD's 2010 HR Software Show. 
