The IT industry is one forever slugging it out for the best of talent. With the increasing number of technology based jobs, talent recruitment is now done on a war footing. Yet there exist some simple ways which can help IT leaders attract the very best. They can start with holding contests which are fun to participate in but at the same time test the mental fortitude. Young employees prefer benefits and perks so these must be enhanced. Career development through corporate training could be one such. An unconventional way that has long been the norm in athletics is signing on bonuses. Cash may be offered immediately for joining. The recruiting company must reflect a sense of calmness so that potential employees consider the place one of fun. Some positions require a sense of magnanimity and care for others. If such a feeling can be fostered, applicants will automatically jump for such positions as has been the case with military jobs.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/team-building-and-staffing/5-ways-it-leaders-can-lure-top-tech-talent/d/d-id/1326839

The concept of the outcome bias is severely debilitating for several organizations. We tend to focus on the results rather than the intentions. This particularly affects talent recruitment as seniors who select newcomers do so often on the basis of genuinely thought out strategies rather than selfish gains. The employee thus recruited may still perform badly in spite of the best of intentions. Studies have shown that when two different decision makers are compared, participants are more likely to look up for the results alone rather than when shown separately. Thus it has been understood that in order to really benefit the organization, evaluations on major decisions such as recruitment must be done before the outcome is released as that rewards people who care for the overall good and not short-term gains.  

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/09/what-we-miss-when-we-judge-a-decision-by-the-outcome

Organizations across sectors and regions experience cases where bosses hurt the competitiveness due to their lack of a grip on the people. They speak out of turn and cannot gauge the emotions of the staff members while forever focusing on the results alone. This is because talent recruitment is rarely conducted on behavioral aspects but instead focuses on qualifications and work experience. Some points if applied can still lead to effective behavioral event interviews. First of all personality tests do not measure Emotional Intelligence and must be not be attempted for this purpose. Self report tests also do not work because chances are high that the aspirant will try to hide one’s shortcomings. Three sixty degree feedback must be used for corporate training and not for evaluation. Best way to measure EI is to get hold of the candidates’ references and speaking with them. Such behavior related interviews must try to make the candidate comfortable as only then will genuine aspects come out. The candidate can be asked to narrate one successful and another not so stories about their life or career.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/02/how-to-hire-for-emotional-intelligence

In modern business organizations, employees are connected not only to one another via social media but in many cases also with vendors, suppliers, clients or even customers. This leads to certain dilemmnas for the organization. The organization must actively try to leverage the contacts of employees. While on the one hand they may all be employees, but their connect to each other matters when it comes to wielding informal influence. There are some of them who are well integrated and rank high on closeness while others may not be that well linked but may provide connect to some loners so can be classified as exhibiting ‘betweenness’. The HR needs to monitor both the groups for risk mitigation as well as for damage control. The closeness exhibiting group allow risk mitigation while damage control can be done using those who show ‘betweenness’. The HR thus needs to conduct a thorough business analysis of the contacts of its employees as well as modes of communication without violating privacy norms. Greater communication by email shows formality while Skype or social media demonstrate relative informality. The talent management team must ensure that pivotal employees are not removed without creating adequate backup.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-to-do-before-you-fire-a-pivotal-employee

A study anchored by Gallup across forty five countries in seven different industries has confirmed that corporate training provided to employees leads to several business gains. There was an increase in profits, sales, customer engagement for organizations where employees’ strengths were further developed upon. In those same places there was a decrease in employee turnover and safety accidents. Some principles need to be followed in order to boost these aspects. First of all the leadership must be approached as the top management’s skills must reflect on the entire organization. Managers must be convinced of the positive impacts of such training sessions, else they will doubt the validity leading to poor implementation. A sense of enthusiasm for such activities must be generated throughout the organization. This will also enable tracking of individual skills so that project teams can reflect diversity on people with varied skill sets. Managers’ appraisals must reflect their teams’ increased engagement and development. This positivity in the company culture will eventually reflect on its overall brand.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/09/developing-employees-strengths-boosts-sales-profit-and-engagement

Human resource management is getting a dose of revolution thanks to the onslaught of technology. Several apps and tools are now available to make work easier such as Workday in HRM, Jolt in workforce management, CATS in recruitment and staffing and Kenexa in talent management. However a lot of HR tech goes waste due to investment in the wrong tools or unnecessary solutions. Learning management is one field within HR where investment is pertinent due to the fact that corporate training is set for several changes. Employees prefer online tools as they provide the flexibility of time to undergo training at anytime suitable on any topic where help is needed. This is in marked contrast to the classroom mode where sessions are pre-decided as per a certain rigorous schedule. Like in CRM, recruitment solutions must create files on each case as the former would do for customers. An ideal workforce management tools meanwhile must incorporate payroll, attendance, leave scheduling and forecasting of labour or staff requirements.

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/02/how-to-make-sense-of-human-resources-technology/

Companies are taking extreme steps in order to succeed at talent recruitment. Snapchat’s geo-filters for example enable poaching of talent from fellow startups. Notably it has also been used to deprive Uber of personnel. Some strategies have thus been etched out which if followed with proper procedure, can improve recruitment drives. While social media is a tried-and-tested source for recruitment, the channels for the same need to altered. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter already posses en number of firms fighting it out for limited number of people. Instead Levo or Muse could be ideal sources for millennial women. For the medical field it could be Doxima, while Stack Overflow will be for developers or programmers. Development of own talent pools is another good strategy as followed by Genesys to recruit from the USA, South Korea, Malaysia and even South America. In order to recruit millennials, their specific concerns will need to be addressed but in a funny manner. GE for example had long been associated with manufacturing and not ground-breaking innovations. Through the “what’s the matter with Owen” campaign, GE very intelligently addressed this challenge and got over it by connecting with younger people.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/04/recruiting-strategies-for-a-tight-talent-market