Notching-up the Stakes

What's the problem with talented employees?

A lot of them already have great jobs and aren't necessarily out there looking for another one.

That's a huge source of lost talent. How can companies get these candidates to come out and look for jobs?

Silicon Valley startup NotchUp is looking for sponsors who will pay candidates $500 or more simply for showing up and going through the interview process. Talented employees sign up for a free NotchUp account, fill out a profile and set their interview price. Companies interested contact them to set up an interview. The job candidate keeps the money even if they aren't hired.

NotchUp members also get a 10% referral fee if a job candidate they invite to join the network is actually hired by a company.

The point of NotchUp's business plan is to eliminate the need for job boards and recruiters in the talent attraction process. The company wants to create a direct link between the applicant and the company without any middlemen.

Click here to check out NotchUp.

Will it catch on?

Take a Break

While researching for a meeting with a client I stumbled across another great photography site..

The point here is that far too few people stop to take a moment and find a distraction that makes them think.. flikr is great for that sort of thing..

More like this here.

Leave it to someone else...

Nearly 90% of CEOs globally, consider people management as their top priority.

But only 60% of CEOs think their time is best spent managing people issues. That's what the HR department is for...

And when it comes to actually handling people issues, only 40% of CEOs think that their HR department is properly equipped to do so.

This is according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers annual survey on CEOs around the world. What a strange and convoluted message.

HR is important for my organization...

But not important enough for me to spend my time on...

Yet I'm fully aware that others in the organization cannot competently deal with this matter and that we are at the dawn of a global "war for talent".

So what exactly are you doing about it?

Get your fix, on wireless

There's a new way to quench your Starbucks craving...

An application for the iPhone and iPod touch is being developed to allow customers to connect and order Starbucks drinks from their phone.



How does it work?

When a customer comes in range of a Starbucks WiFi Hotspot their phone initiates an application to make a connection with the store. The application prompts them to purchase a beverage or to choose from a pre-configured list of "favourite" orders. The application then deducts the funds from their iTunes account. Once payment is confirmed a barcode is displayed on the phone screen.

The customer then swipes the barcode on the phone screen under a reader at the pick-up counter to collect their beverage.



With this new idea Starbucks can reduce staffing for order-taking and payment and allocate their resources instead to preparing their product faster. For the customer it means less time in lines and less fiddling with change in your pocket. Also your favourite orders can be stored so that you get exactly what you want, with the little details right, all the time.

Unusual Perks

There's a huge number of very talented and very driven employees out there for any company to hire.

How different companies are going after the pool of talent never gets boring.

Goldman Sachs, usually a very conservative place to work like much of Wall Street, is offering health benefits to cover sex change operations. Several media publications picked up the story over the past week.

From a CNN article...

Goldman added health-insurance coverage of sex reassignment surgery as part of a push last year to attract top talent and recruit and retain a more diverse workforce, the company said.

The surgery alone could cost an individual anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000 if they paid out of pocket, depending on their particular situation, said Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, a group that campaigns for transgender rights. That figure doesn't include hormone and other drug treatments.

Goldman Sachs' plan covers the actual surgery, as well as transgender-related prescription drugs, such as testosterone injections, said spokeswoman Gia Moron. It does not cover electrolysis and other cosmetic treatments, she said.

The surgery is free under the company's HMO and PPO plans as long as patients are screened and diagnosed with transsexualism and see an in-network doctor. Drugs are subject to regular prescription copays that are typically $5 to $30 a month.

If this is surprising to you... or perhaps it's the first time you're hearing about this talent attraction strategy, let me tell you it's NOT something new.

Actually, Goldman is not the even only financial firm offering these benefits... And if you want to look further into history, you'll find that liberal-leaning university campuses across the continent were the first to introduce these benefits some years ago. Often public employee unions for social study faculties propose such schemes in collective bargaining and then they are adopted in the workplace soon after as part of a negotiated contract.

Bargaining teams frequently make concessions on sex change benefits, because realistically there are very few operations of this kind every year, even in larger companies. It doesn't cost much. However, it is very symbolic for how far a company will go to respect and meet individual needs.

When public employee unions become the innovators in talent attraction and retention strategies, you have to start wondering who's sleeping at the wheel...

Spot The Battleship

NOTE: If you can't actually see the battleship pictured above I strongly recommend that you adjust the settings on your monitor.

The picture above is an example of a WWI and WWII technique known as Dazzle Comouflage.

The premise.. you can't hide, but if you blur your boundaries, and never repeat the same pattern twice, you're more likely to survive.

Perhaps there's a lesson for here for organizations.. I guess the key is being able to see it...

Rip, mix and burn your training

Do some of the words in the title sound familiar?

The words refer to how most people today are sharing and listening to their music. You create your music... rip or copy it... mix the songs to create new beats and then burn it into a CD.

Richard Baraniuk, Professor at Rice University is bringing this concept to books and other written material. His website, Connexions, is a free stockroom of publications and other courseware. Imagine... you can now take material from any book posted on the website to copy it and mix it with some content you created. It's like customizing a book for your needs. Teachers, professors, parents, workplace educators and a number of others can dip into this material to build teaching materials as when they need them and how they need them.

Imagine the potential of this tool in the workplace.

Imagine supervisors, managers and other employees accessing a database of standard materials and adapting them for their particular needs within their department. Employees trained using this material would further contribute to the process by removing content that wasn't effective and adding more useful information. Supervisors would have seamless access to the information and update it instantly as policies and procedures change. Local needs could be immediately integrated into the material.

Which companies would be daring enough to completely let go of centralized and rigid training programs?

Office of the Future

Is your Harvard MBA staff wasting precious time doing mundane spreadsheet tasks, basic research and data entry work?

It doesn't have to be like that anymore. Welcome to the Office of the Future...

Imagine you could just ship the work to another place and have it take care of itself.

In fact, Pfizer's 10,000 employees now have that choice. Pfizer employees used to spend 20-40% of their time on four basic activities: creating documents, working on spreadsheets, scheduling meetings and doing internet research. People who were hired to create broad strategies and innovate were spending their time navigating Microsoft Office.

The Office of the Future is Pfizer's initiative to literally ship their work abroad - to India. Pfizer employees involved in the pilot test program have an "OOF" (Office of the Future) button in their Microsoft Outlook window to send tasks to a "knowledge processing" firm in India. Once the work is sent, a price quote is provided. The Pfizer team leader decides whether the research is worth the quoted price and then proceeds to approve the transaction.

How does it play out?

The benefits of OOF are unexpected. It's not a time-saver in the sense that employees can knock off at 2:30 p.m. Instead, people do more in a set period. "Rather than spending six months analyzing a segment to understand whether it's a market opportunity," says Nancy Steele, executive director of new business development, "we spend closer to three months." She recently OOFed a four-week research project on the blood-substitute market, which would have bogged her down for months.

The financial benefits are also impressive. "When questions come in, like who are the key players in the stem-cell market, often I would hire external consultants," says Kristin Peck, head of worldwide strategic planning. "OOF does the same work for me at one-tenth the cost. It's sort of mini-internal consulting, for very specific questions." For OOF services, Pfizer pays $15 to $35 per worker hour, far less than they'd pay the McKinseys of the world, whose rates typically start at $215 per hour.

For the full story on OOF click here.

HRPAO Innovate '08

Earlier today The Beacon Group finished presenting at the 3 day HRPAO (Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario) conference. This year's HRPAO conference, titled Innovate '08 featured guest speakers from across the nation and world including Ram Charan who spoke about leadership performance. Innovate '08 is the second largest HR conference in the world.

It was a pleasure to be among potential clients and professionals we've worked with before. It was also interesting to discuss the rapid changes in our industry and the latest trends in Human Capital management. As organizations face growing competition for talent, The Beacon Group's message remains clear.

We understand that each and every organization faces very different challenges and opportunities.

Each has very unique and complex priorities.

Each has its own special needs.

We are able to help our clients overcome existing obstacles and limitations by skillfully weaving together a series of varied solutions which help address both their organizational and individual performance issues. Hundreds of companies across various industries have used our assessment products and advising services to leverage their investment in Human Capital. Clients including Mercedes-Benz, McDonald's, Xerox, Sony and SAP have used The Beacon Group's services to grow their thriving businesses.