Human Capital & Corporate Universities Newsletter
December 2007 Issue
Contents
Rethinking Sourcing - By Kevin Wheeler
Don't Call Them Trainees - By Jay Cross
See What's New On Our Redesigned Web Site
Take Our 2008 Global Recruiting Trends Survey
Now On Sale - Recruiting Trends Survey Report 2007
Rethinking Sourcing
By Kevin Wheeler
We all have our routines and habits. For years I drove the same route to work, parked in the same spot, and ate lunch at around the same time every day. Routine is good because it keeps us from wasting time thinking about mundane and unimportant things. It is a necessary component of our lives, yet too much routine for too long can limit productivity and even end our ability to think creatively.
Recruiters and hiring managers have fallen into a sourcing routine that is slowly strangling them. Most recruiters and hiring managers cluster their search for top talent around those people who are between 30 and 45 years old. On the surface this seems like a logical practice; these are the people who have some experience, are not too expensive, and are healthy and energetic. They also are likely to be closer in age to the hiring manager and recruiter, and they probably have family, cultural, and other interests that are similar. In other words, they fit into our stereotypes of what an employee should be.
Hiring managers routinely focus on experience and title as key hiring criteria. Too much and an applicant is deemed overqualified, too high a previous title and they won't be happy. Rarely does a manager ask for someone with extensive experience for a job that he or she would regard as mid-level, or for an entry-level person who could be developed. Everyone is after this middle group of candidates.
Most hiring managers and recruiters never question any of this. They assume, because it has become a routine, that this is both normal and good. They assume that someone with lots of experience won't want or won't be happy in a mid-level position and they assume that entry-level people will require lots of training.
Because of the assumptions and strong beliefs that both recruiters and hiring managers have, recruiters are frantically tapping into all sorts of tools to get at them. The most popular tools, touted by most experts as the best way to source people, include employee referral programs, online search, competitive analysis, targeted marketing, blogging (again aimed at this candidates with a certain level of experience), carefully "tuned" websites that are written to appeal to this group, and job boards.
Many of the assumptions recruiters and managers make, however, turn out to not be all that valid. There is growing evidence from some excellent organizations that hiring people outside this stereotype not only brings in diversity and new ideas, but also costs less in the end because of lower turnover and high engagement.
To compound the sourcing problem, the age group from 30 to 45 years old is also the smallest one to be in the workforce for a long time. There are only approximately 40 million of these Gen-Xers, as those in this age bracket are called, compared to 90 million Baby Boomers and 70 million Gen-Yers - those aged under 30.
Despite the tools and techniques that are being used to find these people, the limited supply will always make it difficult. There is no magic bullet to get more of this group, and most programs are just recycling programs that move talent from one spot to another with little benefit to either party.
Some of these practices may have significantly negative downsides, as well. Referral programs, for example, tend to supply candidates who are exactly like the ones you already have as employees. This lessens diversity of all types and increases the danger of "group-think," which can occur when everyone is more or less similar in background, education, and experience. It is a rare referral program that introduces diversity into the workplace.
What are the alternatives? Organizations like IBM, DuPont, General Electric, and many smaller ones are looking at the ends of the curve for their people. The ends are made up of three groups: new graduates, those over 50, and recent retirees. Each has unique traits that make them highly valuable.
Recent Retirees
This group can be a prime source of candidates. They are still very healthy and very much up-to-date in their fields. They may want to work fewer hours or have a more flexible schedule than less-experienced workers, but they are also not likely to be looking for promotions and are not going to get caught up in corporate politics and power plays. This frees them up to be more productive.
IBM has been re-hiring retirees for many years to lead critical projects and act as technical leads on projects. Their experience makes them highly valued and heavily sought after. This is also happening at DuPont, Dow Chemical, and many other firms that have retirees and appreciate their value.
These same people can be hired by other organizations that are smart and forward-thinking and can break out of the paradigms I have described above.
Over-50 Age Group
These people are most likely still working, but may be ready for a new challenge. Startup companies are finding this group of people key to success and half-a-dozen small firms I work with are actively seeking these people. They are not only relatively easy to recruit; they bring the maturity and experience that younger employees lack and add balance to teams that are very young. Their generational attitudes and loyalty are models for younger employees and add diversity of ideas. Think-tanks and innovation centers often hire them to bring a divergent view.
They are relatively easy to find. After all, the workforce is over 40 percent Baby Boomers and a significant number of them are over 50 and ready for opportunities they thought were only available to young people.
They are also looking for different things than Gen-Xers are. They are most likely focused on challenge and a stimulating projects than on the potential for career advancement or travel. This gives you more options when you put together an offer package.
New College Graduates
Vastly under-recruited and underused, they make up close to 35 percent of the emerging workforce and will be the most dominant group numerically within a decade. Whoever realizes this and starts to tap into them will have a competitive advantage by building a "young-person-friendly" brand.
They are seeking variety, opportunity, project-based work, and organizations with less hierarchy than is traditional. They are much less expensive and learn very quickly - often with little formal training. A team of employees made up of mostly those over 50 and new graduates is powerful. By combining wisdom and experience with the latest knowledge and huge energy, these teams can be more productive than any other. The older employees act as mentors to the younger ones and the younger ones tend to keep the older ones up-to-date.
These three groups are on the fringe of most recruiters' radar screens, but should be at the bull's eye. The Gen-Xers are a small and tough-to-recruit bunch, while these other groups are abundant and looking for new opportunities. Instead of spending time trying to source more Gen-X folks, spend it convincing hiring managers to take a chance on some of these other groups.
I believe that seniors and new graduates will be the most heavily recruited segments within the next five years. You are getting the word early enough to do something exciting in your organization.
About the Author
Kevin Wheeler (kwheeler@glresources.com), the President and Founder of Global Learning Resources, Inc., is a globally-known speaker, author, columnist, and consultant in human capital acquisition and development. His extensive career, global client base, and research affiliations make GLR a leading provider of both strategy and process. GLR focuses on assisting firms architect human capital strategies. GLR guides firms thorough comprehensive talent acquisition processes and procedures as well as the development of talent within organizations of all sizes. GLR can be explored at http://www.glresources.com.
Don't Call Them Trainees
By Jay Cross
"Western cultural views of how best to organize and lead (now the methods most used in the world) are contrary to what life teaches. Leaders use control and imposition rather than participative, self-organizing processes. They react to uncertainty and chaos by tightening already feeble controls, rather than engaging people's best capacities to learn and adapt." -- Margaret Wheatley
An astute VP at a major Silicon Valley chip producer was concerned with the meager results of the company's classroom training. He wanted the firm to focus more on building competencies and less on training events. Workers at the company had been happy to pick and choose traditional training from a buffet of offerings. Taking away their choices would require extreme measures.
So the VP shut down the training department. Cold turkey. Focus shifted from training to talent management. A talent management steering committee representing the Vice Presidents from each major function was formed and backed the plan.
Online employee development plans replaced training. Employees work with their managers to determine what competencies they must master. They agree on a path to get there: on-the-job learning, coaching, books, and other means.
Nearly four years later, they are letting some training creep back in. Compliance and certification had never really gone away. A new CEO favors management development workshops. Training is allowed, but other development options are encouraged first.
I am not advocating the dissolution of training departments. Withdrawal is not pleasant. I am in favor of dumping the term trainee. In a knowledge society, learning is the work and the work is learning. There is no separate reality in a classroom outside of the workplace. It's time for less push and more pull, less-top down and more bottom-up, and less going through the motions and more creating.
Your organization has routines, sacred cows, information hoarders, in-house politicians, rules of thumb, and other paradigm drag. Some of them must go.
Hans Monderman is a Dutch traffic engineer gaining fame for what he doesn't do.
Monderman does not like traffic signs. Over-engineering drains things of context. Civic responsibility fades away. Reckless driving ensues. People get hurt.
Monderman was asked to design a bike path for a village. 2,500 children a day would ride on the path. Following his standard routine, he invited the village elders for a walk in another village. There they saw a road with no speed bumps and no chicanes. The lack of signs and obstacles made drivers take responsibility for their actions. Drivers immediately reduced their speed by 10% when alongside the bike path. Eventually, their speed dropped to 50% of what it had been originally, and there it stayed.
Monderman has worked his magic in more than a hundred Dutch communities. He uproots signs. He clears barriers so drivers can easily see pedestrians. Traffic accidents in Holland are 30% of what they were when he began.
Remove the center line from a country lane; people drive more safely. Clutter a road with signs and barriers, and people feel sufficiently protected to drive as fast as they like. Traffic signs indicate a failure of a road's architecture to communicate context naturally. Hand a traffic engineer a village, and he'll make it a speedway. Vrrooom, vrrooom.
Imagine a jazz band making its way across a modern city. Are they strolling along calmly, talking about their next gig? No, they look more like a military platoon making an escape through enemy territory. Cars, buses, and trucks are the enemy. The city was engineered for them, not pedestrians. Is this any way to live?
Monderman says that if you treat people like fools, they act like fools. Take off the training wheels; they drive like grownups.
Being told to take a training course is like driving on a road with signs, stripes, and bumps. If a worker takes a training course but doesn't learn, what's her reaction? "The training wasn't any good."
Instead of training, tell the worker what she needs to know how to accomplish the job. Offer a variety of ways to get up to speed, from treasure hunts to finding information on the company intranet. This makes the learner take responsibility. There's no longer an excuse for not learning.
Open up a training course at your company. How many inane signs do you see? Some of them are equivalent to saying, "Here, let me connect the dots for you." No! People want to connect the dots for themselves! That's the point.
They are workers, not trainees.
About the Author
Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, web 2.0, and systems thinking. He puts breakthrough business results ahead of business as usual. His calling is to change the world by helping people improve their performance on the job and satisfaction in life. He has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix three decades ago. Learn more about Jay Cross.
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