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Five Questions for Coleman Peterson
Coleman Peterson
Founder of Hollis Enterprises and former chief people officer of Wal-Mart
Two years ago, Coleman Peterson held the human resources reins of the world’s largest private employer. He retired after 10 years at Wal-Mart, and now has time for golf on Thursdays in a new life that includes consulting through his firm Hollis Enterprises in Bentonville, Arkansas, and sitting on the corporate boards of J.B. Hunt Transport Services and the ServiceMaster Co., whose divisions include pest control service Terminix.
From a less-hectic perch, Peterson calls for a national plan to deal with soaring health care costs. He also touches on his record at the retail giant. Peterson spoke to Workforce Management staff writer Ed Frauenheim.
Workforce Management: Very few African Americans make it to the executive suite in corporate America. You did. What do you wish corporate executives would do to be more inclusive?
Coleman Peterson: Companies have to be willing to give more than lip service. They have to run the business the way they should run the business, which is to focus on people’s performance—and not on personality. In order to do that successfully, companies have to ensure that they have the kinds of systems in place that allow them to know who is there, what their interests are and to objectively evaluate everyone’s performance on an even plane.
WM: Headlines today speak of various workplace woes, such as companies defaulting on pensions. Has the historical pact between workers and companies completely disintegrated?
Peterson: I won’t say it has completely disintegrated. But it has changed. According to a recent survey, HR professionals think the most important factor in job satisfaction is the relationship with the immediate supervisor, followed by management recognition of job performance. But do you know what employees said was the No. 1 factor? Benefits. Do you know what was No. 2? Compensation.
WM: Do you think the federal government has a bigger role to play in health care benefits?
Peterson: I think it’s going to be very difficult for individual companies to make an impact in this area. There’s going to have to be some partnership between the private sector and a government initiative that relates to management of health care. There has to be some management of the escalating costs. And there has to be some central operation that allows for visibility into the true cost of care at different providers.
WM: What was your high point at Wal-Mart?
Peterson: A dramatic reduction in the company’s turnover. It was in excess of 70 percent annually when I joined, and we got it to below 35 percent. Our objective was to literally cut turnover in half.
WM: There’s a notion that you left Wal-Mart as a fall guy amid criticism of the company’s pay and benefits. Do you wish you had pushed for stronger benefits?
Peterson: On the contrary. I wish I had more successfully articulated to the market and to the naysayers the plans Wal-Mart had, which were comparable to those of others in the industry. Having already spent 20 years in retail, I told my family I would make a 10-year commitment at Wal-Mart. I joined April 30, 1994, and left April 30, 2004.
Workforce Management, December 12, 2005, p. 11 — Subscribe Now!
Older Workers Seek Flexibility, Autonomy, Learning
When it comes to integrating older employees into the workforce, the Cendant Car Rental Group has the right idea.
As it begins to establish neighborhood rental centers–those not located at airports–the owner of the Avis and Budget brands is looking for workers 50 years or older to run the businesses.
“They’re going to bring all of what makes a 50-plus worker valuable in terms of relationships, knowledge and maturity” that it takes to build a business, says Mark Servodidio, executive vice president of human resources at Cendant.
Servodidio is trying to tap into older workers’ entrepreneurial spirit by giving them a cut of their franchise’s profit. “The more successful the business is, the more money they make,” he says.
Cendant’s approach is exactly what new reports recommend that all businesses do to retain older workers. The more that 50-plus people can control their hours, exercise autonomy and find opportunities to learn, the more likely they will be to continue working, according to two new reports by the Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College and the Families and Work Institute.
The key to retaining older workers, who are likely to be in demand as the U.S. population ages and its labor force shrinks, is for companies to structure jobs creatively.
“Flexibility doesn’t just mean flextime,” says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. “Flexibility means thinking in new and creative ways about dealing with issues like the pace or the timing of work.”
The studies found that workers 50 or older are significantly more likely than their younger cohorts to be self-employed or run a small business. In addition, more than a quarter of wage –and salary employees and 43 percent of employees under 30 plan “to be their own boss” one day. The reports’ findings come from an analysis of the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce. The study, conducted every five years, samples about 3,500 workers.
The new reports were released in Washington on December 12 in conjunction with the White House Conference on Aging. Cendant’s successes with older workers were cited in Washington in November, when the company was recognized as a featured employer by AARP.
In another finding, the reports indicate that older women earn 55 cents for every dollar that men make across all hours and all jobs, including part-time and temporary positions. When only “primary” jobs are compared, women earn about 69 cents of a man’s dollar. The difference is due to older women having less education and working fewer hours.
This earning disparity continues into retirement, as women are more likely to have amassed smaller savings because of lower contributions to 401(k)s.
“Women are going to have to work longer or turn to other sources of income in ways that men will not have to,” says Michael Smyer, co-director of the Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility.
Five Questions for Michael Schlein
Michael Schlein
Senior vice president of global corporate affairs, HR and business practices at Citigroup
After Citigroup was hit with scandals around the globe, CEO Chuck Prince implemented a five-point plan to get the company’s 300,000 employees focused on long-term goals rather than short-term pressures. The program, which Schlein helped develop, entails training, communications, talent development, performance appraisals and controls. Schlein recently talked to Workforce Management staff writer Jessica Marquez.
Workforce Management: How did you come up with the plan?
Michael Schlein: Chuck Prince and I met with chief executive officers at different corporations, such as General Electric, Dell, Xerox and Johnson & Johnson, and asked them what were their best practices, and then we worked from there.
WM: Why is the focus on long-term goals and how do you change employees’ mindset?
Schlein: One thing that the recent events showed us was that there was too much focus on short-term business pressures and not enough on the long-term franchise. The first thing we did was make all of our employees across the globe watch a film about the history of Citigroup. We wanted employees to recognize they play a part in the entire organization to balance the short-term pressures of their daily lives. Until recently, all that we had to tie people together was stock price, so we needed something more. We also created a common performance appraisal system for all managers that requires them to write down their goals for the year. At the end of the year, each manager will have conversations with their supervisors about their goals. The hope is that every year those conversations will get better.
WM: How have you changed employee training and orientation?
Schlein: Our training has been different in different places. Starting next year there will be one orientation focusing on the company history to welcome everyone to that common language. We have a whole series of leadership development programs that can range from an off-site with Chuck Prince to online training for 30,000 managers. Next year every new manager will go through consistent training so that it means one thing to be a Citigroup manager.
WM: How do you measure the success of the program?
Schlein: Every month we report to our management committee, CEO and regulators on the execution of our program. We also look at employee surveys and surveys outside of the company as well as public perception. There is no single answer.
WM: How do you encourage more open communications within the company?
Schlein: Our senior executives are spending a lot of time traveling the world to speak to employees and get their feedback. Also, every two months, we have a call with senior managers where employees can talk to Prince directly. And whenever a significant event occurs, we have a call. We also do surveys every September where we ask every employee a whole list of questions about their perceptions of how we are doing. We do smaller polls to survey how our five-point plan is doing.
Workforce Management, November 21, 2005, p. 9 — Subscribe Now!
Holiday-Hiring Wish Lists Vary at Large Firms
UPS starts planning for the holidays at about the same time Santa Claus does–in January. It must start thinking about the season early because it hires 40,000 to 60,000 temporary workers to meet the holiday surge.
“We look for more efficiencies in how we’re going to recruit,” says Mike Johnson, UPS vice president for human resources for U.S. operations. Last year, UPS automated holiday staffing by hiring through its Web site. This year, it is strengthening its cyber-recruiting efforts.
“It has allowed us to expand our reach for applicants,” Johnson says. “Everyone has to apply through the Web. We’ve gotten completely away from a paper-based system.”
UPS hires delivery truck and tractor-trailer drivers, driver helpers and clerks to augment its 348,400 U.S. employees during the holiday season. The company needs the extra hands to keep up with the flood of packages that reaches a peak on December 20, when 20 million parcels will be delivered.
Another major shipper, FedEx, will experience its peak day on December 12, when it is scheduled to deliver 8.5 million packages. It will hire 8,000 temporary workers at FedEx Ground for November and December. FedEx utilizes its Web site to match applicants with job vacancies, while also conducting campus recruiting and placing newspaper advertisements.
“Each HR field manager does what works best in their area,” says Allison Sobczak, a FedEx Ground spokeswoman.
Not all businesses that need extra workers staff up for the holidays. Borders relies on part-time employees and students it hires throughout the year to work additional hours to meet increased traffic in its bookstores, according to Anne Roman, company public relations director. “Our hiring for the holidays year-over-year has not grown,” she says.
The number of shoppers is expected to increase this year. The National Retail Federation forecasts that holiday sales will rise 6 percent. Sales for the Thanksgiving weekend surged by 21.9 percent.
To meet customer needs, Wal-Mart will tap 50,000 temporary workers this season, which is about the same level as last year. Although each of its stores may take a slightly different approach to recruiting based on the local labor market, Wal-Mart’s holiday staff is likely to represent the same demography as its regular hires—students, second-income earners and seniors.
“Those are the groups of people who will want extra money for the holidays,” Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman says.
UPS hopes its relationship with seasonal workers goes beyond Christmas. About 25 percent of holiday hires become permanent UPS employees, gaining medical and 401(k) benefits even at the part-time level.
“They’re very interested in doing well so that they can be recommended for potential rehire,” says Johnson, who began his UPS career as a holiday loader-unloader during the Thanksgiving holiday in 1975.
The Jobs You Can’t Do Without
Pause a moment and name the jobs that your company depends upon to meet its goals for the next year. Would the list include the CEO? The CFO? Perhaps an engineer responsible for a high-potential product? A sales representative who covers a key territory?
Edwards Lifesciences Corp. performs this exercise every year. The cardiovascular device maker understands the critical nature of certain jobs, and regularly identifies positions that are absolutely integral to meeting its business strategy. CEO Michael Mussallem says success in the cardiovascular product industry depends as much–if not more–on knowing which jobs are essential to the company as it does on pioneering innovative technology.
That’s why he is personally involved in selecting who gets the jobs. And he has determined that talent reviews trump board agendas.
“Out of all the activities I’m involved in, I think that this is one where I provide the most value,” Mussallem says. “Our people are essential to the success of our company, and Edwards’ Talent Development Process addresses the most critical positions that have the biggest impact on that success.”
At Edwards–which has regional headquarters in Irvine, California; Switzerland; and Japan–about 75 of its 5,000 employees hold critical positions. They range from members of the senior management team to managers on mission-critical programs.
The company is a global leader in products and technologies to treat advanced cardiovascular disease, the global leader in acute hemodynamic monitoring, and boasts of being the No. 1 heart valve company in the world.
John Sullivan, consultant and management professor at San Francisco State University, says that by identifying the most essential jobs in an organization, companies are able to put their best resources into the areas where they will have the maximum effect. “Companies have been prioritizing customers for centuries, placing emphasis on high-value customers with repeat-spending habits,” he notes. “Much like a single high-value customer can make or break a business, so too can a limited number of positions.”
As an organization pinpoints the jobs that directly produce revenue, touch customers or possess the skills needed to develop or deliver the features that differentiate it from competitors, the company’s focus moves from the top of the organization to much lower in the organization, he says.
“When asked to prioritize jobs that are mission-critical to the organization for the first time, many human resource professionals come back with the top few rungs of the organization chart,” says Sullivan, former chief talent officer of Agilent Technologies. “When forced to really think about what positions in the organization have the ability to immediately impact a firm’s time to market or quality of goods or service being offered, the list of critical positions looks a lot different.”
As an example, Sullivan cites FirstMerit Bank, which operates in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The bank’s manager of recruiting determined that 74 percent of revenue came from only 12 percent of the jobs. “He realized that a vacancy in a commercial lending position would cost the bank thousands of dollars in unrealized revenue each day,” Sullivan says. “As a result, openings for such positions were given priority focus.”
Many companies, including MGM Grand Hotel & Casino and Valero Energy Corp., North America’s largest oil refiner, also find that prioritizing jobs is essential, Sullivan says. Valero spent two years mapping talent in refineries, identifying key positions and developing labor supply chains that coordinate training, recruitment and retention to fill vital gaps.
Program’s origin
The roots of Edwards’ critical-jobs system go back to the days when the organization was a division of Baxter International, a maker of medical products based in Deerfield, Illinois. Before Vernon Loucks stepped down in 1999 after 18 years as CEO of the firm, he wanted to leave the company and its divisions well-prepared for the future. His desire led executives to identify the top imperatives in the coming years for each division and region.
| A position is labeled critical based not on who holds it, but on its importance in achieving business goals. “It has nothing to do with the person, and everything to do with the business imperative.” –Robert Reindl, Edwards Lifesciences Corp. |
To help, Loucks brought in management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. At the time, Robert Reindl, now corporate vice president of human resources at Edwards, was vice president of human resources for Baxter’s cardiovascular group. He worked with McKinsey to recognize the jobs where the company needed strong performance to achieve its business imperatives. Once discussions began in 1998 about spinning off Edwards, his ability to identify critical jobs and to allocate top performers took on even greater importance.
“We weren’t going to have the Baxter corporate leadership to lean on anymore,” Reindl says. “We were going to be by ourselves, our own independent company on the New York Stock Exchange.”
Today, analysts characterize Edwards Lifesciences, which sells medical technologies in more than 100 countries, with 2004 sales of $931 million, as a steady performer and leader among the 19 firms racing to be the first to introduce a noninvasive heart valve. Tim Nelson, research analyst with Piper Jaffray Co., characterizes the most recent quarter for Edwards as in line with expectations and says the company consistently delivers profit growth of 13 percent to 15 percent.
In November, Piper Jaffray graded the company “outperform” on its expected performance on the S&P 500 over the next 12 months. In comparison, the brokerage graded competitors St. Jude Medical, Boston Scientific Corp. and Medtronic Inc. all as “market perform,” expected to perform in line with the S&P 500 over the next 12 months.
Over the years, the “talent management system” has become interwoven with corporate strategy. Executives are tight-lipped about which jobs have been identified as critical, except for the most obvious, such as franchise leaders, who oversee the four main businesses in which Edwards operates (heart valve therapy, critical care, cardiac surgery systems and vascular therapies), and key positions responsible for noninvasive-valve strategy.
But even with its well-publicized noninvasive valve, inserted using a catheter sent through the veins rather than opening a patient’s chest, the company declines to cite specific job titles as examples.
“We don’t publish a list of our critical jobs because it is totally connected with our strategy,” Reindl says. “If you saw a list of all of our critical jobs and you knew the medical device industry, you’d be able to pick off what our strategic imperatives are for the future.”
| “I am a firm believer that organizations should not only prioritize jobs, but actively communicate with employees how the jobs are prioritized, why they are prioritized, and what the current ranking looks like.” –-John Sullivan, author of Rethinking Strategic HR |
At least two successors at the firm are now identified for each critical job. A position is labeled critical based not on who holds it, but on its importance in achieving business goals. “It has nothing to do with the person,” Reindl says, “and everything to do with the business imperative.”
For veteran professionals in human resources, the critical-jobs program may sound a bit like the old-fashioned process of job evaluation. After all, job evaluation focuses on positions, not people, ranking jobs in order of their relative worth. But executives at Edwards Lifesciences say their talent management program is nothing like the job-worth hierarchy produced by evaluations. They cite the fluidity of critical jobs, which can change annually based on the business imperative. They also point to the chief executive’s hands-on involvement in succession planning for all critical jobs, not just the positions of people who directly report to him.
How it works
At Edwards, a job becomes critical each year after the company reviews and chooses its strategic imperatives. The assessment is part of a multistage process that culminates in talent reviews by the CEO. Mussallem conducts 15 such reviews, each one taking four to five hours. He and Reindl meet with the president of each region as well as the officer in charge of each function and their human resources partners.
They talk about the mission of their organization, key imperatives, the organizational chart and whether it will change, critical jobs that currently are listed on the chart, and the succession plan for each critical job.
That’s also when Mussallem and Reindl look at “mitigation strategies,” steps taken if someone in a critical job is performing subpar, for example, or plans for addressing problems retaining high-potential employees. Because critical jobs intertwine with business imperatives that are updated annually, a job could be considered critical one year but not the next. Some IT jobs, for example, would have been considered vital immediately before 2000 because of concerns about the Y2K date rollover, but not afterward, Reindl notes.
“If I told you that you were in a critical job, I also would tell you that potentially this is not going to be a critical job forever,” he says. “That doesn’t mean we might not move you to another critical job. That doesn’t mean you may not be an important person if you’re not a critical person.”
Once deemed critical, each job is given clear objectives that are vetted by the CEO. The company also estimates a market value for the job and increases the total compensation of the job holder. It pays a premium to people in critical jobs because the external market value doesn’t reflect how important the position is to the company.
“We want to make sure they aren’t paid below market, for sure,” Reindl says. “So they are paid either at or above market.”
Succession planning plays an important role too. “Usually, you want to have some of your highest-potential people coming into your critical jobs,” Reindl says. “If we identify the people who will be successors to critical jobs, we will say, ‘What should be their next job or two jobs that would expedite them to get to a critical job?’ They’re prioritized in terms of leadership-development training.”
Research suggests that such strategic approaches to succession planning help companies’ financial performance. Consulting firm Bain & Co. studied 23 high-growth companies in 2002 and found that businesses whose leaders embrace a “rigorous system” for developing and allocating the organization’s leadership capital significantly outperform companies that don’t. Less than 15 percent of the companies examined by Bain develop high-potential employees by advancing the right people through the right jobs.
But Bain found that the organizations that adhered to a system for developing and allocating leadership capital had shareholder returns, on average, of more than 10 percent a year above their cost of capital over a 10-year period.
The most common question that Sullivan, author of Rethinking Strategic HR, hears from human resources professionals is how to avoid demoralizing employees who learn they aren’t in critical jobs. “The short and simple answer is that prioritizing mission-critical or key jobs positively impacts everyone and hurts no one,” Sullivan says.
Focusing on these jobs optimizes a company’s prospects at success, which in turn helps drive job security, rewards and career advancement opportunities for all, he says. “I am a firm believer that organizations should not only prioritize jobs, but actively communicate with employees how the jobs are prioritized, why they are prioritized, and what the current ranking looks like,” Sullivan says.
Edwards has become more transparent about its critical-jobs strategy since its introduction seven years ago. In its infancy, the program had to be kept quiet because it was driven by information that wasn’t public: the pending spinoff from Baxter. Now the company is much more open about it, a change, officials say, that adds credibility with employees.
Above all, the program works because the CEO views it as important as financials and customer and investor relationships. “By having strong talent in critical positions,” Mussallem says, “our technologies have the greatest potential to have a real impact on patients.”
Workforce Management, December 12, 2005, p. 1, 16-22 — Subscribe Now!
The Hidden Beauty of Career Fairs
In this age of Internet recruiting, career fairs and job expos have a quaint feel about them. But smart companies are using fairs to pull in highly qualified candidates and cut time to fill down to days, all at a relatively low cost. They are also discovering that career fairs can build the employment brand and fill recruiting pipelines. And when the fairs are staffed by employees, they can help build morale and turn workers into year-round recruiters.
Mike D’Amico, director of compensation, benefits, staffing and HRMS at Cognos Inc., is a career fair convert. With 3,500 employees and high growth, the business intelligence software company is actively recruiting sales, customer support, R&D and finance employees and signed up more than 150 new employees this year for its Canadian facilities alone, with 60 of those hired through a career fair that the company hosted on May 7.
Cognos typically recruits with an in-house team for nonexecutive hires and a third party for senior-level positions in its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, and Burlington, Massachusetts. But in the spring of 2005, the company had too many open positions. “We started to see the market tighten, so we scheduled the career fair,” D’Amico says.
Cognos held the fair at its Ottawa facilities and staffed it with 140 employees who volunteered to work at the Saturday event. The total cost was US$55,000, spent mostly for radio spots and other advertising and for the CDs about the company that each attendee received.
Cognos made it clear in advertising for the fair that the bulk of the jobs were highly technical and required experience in the high-tech industry. Its objective was to fill 70 open positions, including 40 R&D jobs. The company also wanted to invigorate its pipeline and launch a branding and marketing initiative to aid future recruiting efforts. “We wanted to use the fair to get out information about the value proposition that Cognos has to offer,” D’Amico says.
Low cost, high quality
The half-day Cognos fair pulled in 1,800 attendees, with some candidates arriving hours before the doors opened. Candidates passed through a prescreening process that routed 375 “yes” candidates and 500 “maybe” candidates to specific areas for each position. The rest were routed to a “not likely” table.
“Almost half of the 1,800 were high-quality candidates, and this far surpassed our expectations,” D’Amico notes. Additional screening and short interviews with hiring managers generated more information about each candidate, with 200 finalists invited to return for an extended interview at the firm.
Offers went out within a week. Cognos hired 35 attendees directly and an additional 25 through referrals from attendees or candidates who applied online because of the fair. One of the hires was placed in a senior director position and has already been promoted to vice president. “We considered it a resounding success to get 60 hires out of one day’s activities, and on a cost-per-hire basis, it was incredibly cheap,” D’Amico says. “There’s no way we could have spent the money more effectively.”
Cognos went out of its way to ensure that unsuitable candidates left the fair with a positive image of the event and the company. Some were counseled about the additional training they might need to work in the high-tech industry; all left with handouts to help them in their job search. “We treated them with dignity and they walked away with something of value,” D’Amico says.
As a pipeline-building event, the fair was a huge success. Before the fair, Cognos received 50 to 150 online applications a day. “This jumped 200 percent when we were publicizing the fair and then another 200 percent in the month after the fair,” D’Amico reports. With the pipeline re-energized, Cognos has cut time to fill by 45 percent for hiring completed since the fair.
With a cost of less than $1,000 for each hire and benefits that reach well beyond the immediate recruiting results, Cognos has now decided to hold fairs on a regular basis. “It was so successful that we are now planning to have a biannual or annual fair, depending on our level of hiring,” D’Amico says. The employees who worked the fair received meals and a personal thank you, and became more committed to the company, he reports. “This was a great side benefit of the fair. The employees were energized and excited to see the firm grow by bringing in good talent.”
Campus connections
Using career fairs to hire direct from industry works well for IT companies such as Cognos that are looking for specific skills and experience. They also work well in accounting, where labor markets are tight and firms are looking for new graduates because of the severe shortage of candidates with three to seven years of experience. Rachlin Cohen & Holtz, a regional independent accounting firm based in Miami, has turned to campus career fairs as the best method for filling positions. The firm has found that job expos not associated with colleges do not draw sufficient numbers of public accountants because of the tight labor market conditions.
Rachlin goes head-to-head with the Big Four and other large regional accounting firms when it recruits new accountants and staff. The company hits fairs at Florida colleges in the spring and fall, with on-campus interviews conducted the day after a fair and office visits scheduled for the following week. It also pays some of its interns a stipend to become the firm’s campus representative when they return to school.
“The labor market for accountants has tightened so more firms are recruiting at the fairs,” notes Marc Grad, director of human resources. At the fall 2005 University of Florida fair, Rachlin manned its booth with two partners and two staff members, including one recent graduate who knew many of the students and could establish an immediate connection for the firm.
The company’s representatives talk to anywhere from a few dozen candidates at smaller fairs to a few hundred candidates at large fairs such as the one at the University of Florida. After that fair, Rachlin followed up with 24 on-campus interviews the next day, and then invited 12 finalists for an office visit. Out of the 12, Grad expects to make five offers.
After the spring 2005 fairs, the company made 24 offers and received 17 acceptances. “We were thrilled,” Grad recalls. “That’s a very high acceptance rate in this market.” Grad believes that the quality of hires at the career fairs is generally higher than it is through other sources.
But competition for the top candidates is tough.
“At the fairs, the Big Four put on a glossy dog and pony show, followed by spa and golf outings,” Grad says. In contrast, Rachlin candidates meet with a managing partner and spend a day at the firm. This year, the firm developed a new pitch based around the idea that it offers candidates a “big-firm experience with a small-firm feel,” where new hires work with clients as large as Big Four clients and gain more hands-on experience and variety in their assignments. “It’s been a successful differentiation,” he reports. “We have a better story to tell and we’re attracting higher quality candidates.”
Rachlin uses signing bonuses only as a last resort. With the Big Four often offering a salary that is 10 percent higher, Rachlin tries to close the gap with a direct call to the candidate from a managing partner and a $1,000 signing bonus. “It’s not all about money, fortunately,” Grad says. “A direct call from a managing partner is worth a lot. New graduates want opportunities.” The firm has also added a new benefit that covers the costs of review courses for the CPA exam.
The tighter markets have pushed up salaries in accounting, and in the spring of 2005, Rachlin found that it was lagging in the market. The firm has just completed a massive round of increases. “This spring, we increased salaries 10 percent to 20 percent for new recruits, which caused compression elsewhere in the organization, so we had to give bonuses and across-the-board merit increases of up to 28 percent,” Grad says.
Career fair comeback
“Hiring through career fairs is a veritable bargain,” Grad says. “In addition to filling our immediate hiring needs, we get to eyeball other firms, and there are great marketing opportunities. We can build a pipeline by talking to younger students who can be slotted into internships. Also, candidates at the fairs have their own sets of friends that they can refer to us. The fairs provide a lot of bang for your buck if you look at the exposure you gain and the number of people you reach.”
With job growth improving at most companies, career fairs are making a comeback as an effective recruiting tool. In October, Compuware Corp. held an invitation-only fair for IT candidates in Montreal to fill 100 open positions. Qualcomm, the wireless technology giant, hit five different recruiting fairs for minority candidates this fall in addition to two dozen campus fairs. Industry fairs for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies often draw more than 1,000 candidates.
Career fairs allow companies to balance the high-tech approach to recruiting with high-touch methods and strengthen their recruiting pipelines, which will become increasingly important as labor markets continue to tighten in many industries. As Cognos and Rachlin have discovered, fairs are a fast, inexpensive method for achieving face time with high-quality candidates and building the employment brand in all the right places.
Questions Companies Need to Ask About Critical Jobs and Talent
Anticipating waves of retirements from baby boomers and skills gaps in the workforce, Deloitte Research predicts that critical talent will become scarcer. To ensure their organizations have an adequate supply of high-performing talent for important jobs, Deloitte says CEOs should ask company human resources leaders the following questions:
4Which segments of the workforce create the value for which we are most rewarded in the marketplace?
4Which areas of our business will be most impacted by impending waves of retirement? What are we doing to prepare successors? What impact will anticipated retirement have on the skills and productivity necessary to meet future demand?
4In what areas is the talent market heating up (i.e., demand will outpace supply)? Which segments of our workforce will be most impacted? What are the potential top-line and bottom-line implications?
4What skills will we need over the next five years that we don’t currently possess? How will we create that capacity? What happens to our business if we don’t?
4What is our turnover within critical areas? How much is it costing us? In customers? In productivity? In innovation? In quality? What are we doing to resolve the root cause?
4Are we actively developing talent portfolios or workforce plans that will help us to understand and communicate the financial consequences of talent decisions on our business?
Source: It’s 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? Copyright 2004 Deloitte Development
Workforce Management, December 12, 2005, p. 14 — Subscribe Now!
Workforce Management Dec. 12, 2005
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The Jobs You Can’t Do Without
By Todd Henneman |
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| By identifying the key jobs that most directly drive the company’s business, employers can put resources into areas where they’ll have the greatest impact. | ||
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2005 Data Bank Annual
By Fay Hansen |
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| When it comes to economic and business conditions, there is no better gauge of where we’re going than where we’ve been. Data from 2005 foreshadows trends in 2006. | |||
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The Last Word
Paltry pay season Companies enjoy record growth and earnings—some should be invested in employees. |
In the Mail Healthy debate Readers comment on Wal-Mart’s plans for employee health care and benefit costs. |
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Saturn innovations will live on at GM.
The plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, was known for its labor/management cooperation. That might be Saturn’s real legacy. UPS, FedEx gear up for holiday hiring. SAP comes on strong in HR sales. Google Base debuts with job ads galore. Hot List: Top background and screening providers. And more |
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| HR technology Oracle’s formula for Fusion The stakes are high as Larry Ellison’s company bids to combine the best features of several product lines, including PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. |
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Health Alert
Large employers plan for avian flu The illness is off the radar for many organizations, but companies including Intel and some international airlines are making pandemic plans. |
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November 21, 2005
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November 7, 2005 |
October 21, 2005
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