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Professional jobs at risk!
A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend of mine, Chrissie Lightfoot, who has written a great blog titled The end of Lawyers on the changes to how the legal profession will be changing. The article is very revealing and Chrissie has made some excellent observations.
Her blog has caused some discussion with friends who use the internet for business. It’s been agreed that now we can offer experts in India, China, Thailand and all over the world work that would normally be done very expensively such as marketing, research, print design, professional advice and even pay someone to write our blogs, monitor the results and only pay for what we have had satisfactorily delivered at a fraction of the price. Why would we want to hire expensive people or firms locally?
The result must be that professional firms in Europe and the USA must consider that to survive they must identify Micro-niche products that can’t be easily replicated.
Should Banking Bonuses be suspended?
During the financial downturn where billions of pounds and dollars of taxpayers money are being pumped into the banks to support them, whilst homes and jobs in other industries are at risk due to the bank’s credit squeeze, is it fair that some individuals are still walking away with millions of dollars and pounds in bonuses?
Why Diversity Attracts Top Talent
Emplyees taking out high profile legal actions for discrimination seem to have had an affect on how firms are changing their attitude to diversity issues. Not so long ago high profile court cases were cited as a reason for Top Talent to leave (or not join) firms with a poor record. Indeed a positive policy towards diversity, ethics and environmental issues is fast becoming a necessary aspect of attracting and retaining talent.
The list of City firms have begun to accept that a positive policy towards diversity makes companies attractive to new hires and to top talent continues to grow. It’s interesting to note that Merill Lynch, Deloitte & Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Lehman Brothers are all championing diversity.
Diversity isn’t just being packaged as a female issue it includes Gay, Lesbian and transgender areas as well as other minority groups. Deloitte and Touche have their own version that includes not just physical impairment but mental health issues too. Lehaman Brothers have a European Director of Diversity that has stated that they have mid and year end diversity review meetings where they set aside a diversity bonus pool to those employees that have shown leadership in driving forward diversity and inclusion.
It seems that City of London firms have come to the conclusion that Top Talent is too scarce to excluding the top talent to be found in the more diverse areas of our society. It might also reduce the number of high profile court cases.
A good E-image is essential to attracting talent
Having a positive e-image is essential to attracting top talent to a company and for creating a “feel good factor” for existing staff. Companies that have a good e-image for staff recruitment include TESCO, Barclays Bank and?Standard Chartered Bank.
?Essential information?includes:
- A career pathway
- Training and development opportunities
- Collection of talent contact details
- Culture
- Vacancies and fast track promotion ?
?Which other companies do you think have a positive e-image and why?
Job Promotion as Stressful as Divorce
Recent research indicates that gaining promotion at work is as stressful as Divorce.
Do you agree?
Accountant Firms experience talent crisis in 2007
Research indicates that 81% of Accountancy and finance firms say they are likely to find recruiting talent difficult during 2007 and that this situation is likely to get worse over the foreseeable future.Further research from Manpower UK reveals that 71% of employers feel that retaining talent will be the number one priority over the next few years. As a result HR management are being asked to increase their skills in reward management and retention strategies. The survey also reveals that the most common strategy being adopted by firms is to throw money at the problem by matching competitor’s salaries.However?in my?experience such a tactic is bound to fail. The reason is that the firms at most risk are SME’s and as a result there will always be someone else with more money. Another reason is talent rarely moves just for money and in addition a “one size fits all” retention policy is proved not to work. Dealing with Top Talent is more complicated that that. Instead BRC recommends the following:
- Audit what attracts talent to the business
- Audit individual talent to discover what they value about the business
- Review recruitment and retention policies
- Train managers in retention strategies
- Reward managers for retaining talent
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Ten Tips on How to Retain Top Talent
1) Don’t presume that Top Talent will always be available. There’s a world shortage of Top Talent in most business?sectors and that’s likely to become more acute.
2) Decide on the skills, attitude, aptitude and motivation that you require from your talent and then search for it using that criteria.
3) Look at how your competitors attract top talent and seek ways of improving what they do. Review this often as they will seek to copy your strategy.
4) Resist the temptation to “Throw Money at Top Talent”. Remember that talent doesn’t always look for money and in any event there will always be someone who will have more money?than you. Consider other strategies.
5) Identify why talent would be attracted to your firm.
6) Identify why talent stays with you or is leaving.
7) Different types of talent will look for different things. So be flexible in how you develop your talent strategy. One size won’t fit all.
8) Don’t vest all your energy into one small section of talent (such as a graduate programme). The ideal solution is to have talent from top to bottom in the organisation.
9) If your business is a SME consider having a talent strategy for your associates or even suppliers and review this regularly.
10) Remember that if one talented person leaves your business then the risk of losing further talent increases by 50%.?If you can attract top talent to you then your chances of attracting more increases by 50%
How TESCO hangs onto its Top Talent
It’s been reported that Tesco has found an ingenious way of holding onto its Top Talent. Under headhunting rules search companies and consultants will always sign an “off limits” agreement with clients. In effect this restricts anyone from poaching people from their clients when engaged by a rival company to fill a job vacancy. Tesco, it is alleged by some parts of the media, have engaged every headhunter it knows in a move to prevent Top talent being headhunted to Sainsbury or Marks & Spencer.This is all very well but if Tesco’s competitors also use this strategy then staff could well be “locked in” to their current firm and with little movement at all.
Well we doubt that, in reality, staff will not be moving from one superstore to another it but it’s an amusing thought to consider all that talent in Tesco’s, Sainsbury and M&Ss head office wondering why their phones don’t ring with job offers anymore!!
UK Top Talent can’t Compete with Globalisation
Globalisation means that in many ways it’s easier to have technology designed in India, Far Eastern manufacturing products produced in China and labour from Eastern Europe to undertake the jobs those in the UK don’t want to do.
Indeed, for some time it’s been possible to give “a brief” for artwork for an online brochure at 3pm one afternoon and wake up the following morning for the brochure to be already uploaded onto a professionally produced new website that had been designed and placed on the net and is ready to take orders online.
And all of this for one sixth of the cost you would pay in the UK!
So has or will UK Talent and many businesses price themselves out of the marketplace?
How do “Office Politics” impact on success?
How important is understanding office politics to success?
What types of actions are acceptable and what types of actions unacceptable, or is it all fair in love and war?
Where can you learn how to “play the game”?