Hire Strategies Blog

Talent community or field of dreams?

Build it and they'll come. Will they? Will it work? Will anyone really care?

Is your culture killing your social media efforts?

So your CEO has a BHAG.

Chances are it includes the Internet, social, technology, maybe even the cloud.

But here’s the bigger question. Can your company adapt to the changes ahead? Or is your culture so engrained that it cannot handle change?

Of course I don’t mean you, it’s everyone else that has problems with culture.

Really?

Swap desks right now with someone else without telling them. See how well they adapt to a sudden change that can be easily undone.

The BHAG may exist but will your people stop it happening? Do you have leaders that can help them change?

Only you know the truth.

What's in a name Costa?

Toffee or caramel. Does it really matter? In most cases it doesn’t which is what some bright spark in Costa product marketing thought. But try telling that to the kids - or the baristas!

Lumesse rebrand: but what do the employees really think?

So this week has seen the final days of Stepstone Solutions and the welcome of Lumesse. As you may know, I was in Luton for the offical launch of the new brand and it was of course a great day for all involved. But, what about the people at the sharp end? What did they really think?

Great learning happens in groups; collaboration is the stuff of growth

The teacher should teach the way the learner learns NOT the learner should learn the way the teacher teaches. Amazing thinking and fantastic way of communicating the message through video. 11 minutes well spent.

 

Building a community - what technology platform should you choose?

Although you need to have a strategy that dictates the need for you to build a community, assuming you do, what about the technology?  You can use Ning which is great and starts off as a free platform or you can get Jive which is the market leader with a Gucci price tag to match.

A good start point is the Gartner, Inc.'s 2009 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace which you can get from Jive if you register here.

There is also the Enterprise Social Media event on 15/16 March at Olympia in London where you'll be able to check out various vendors that offer community software.

The number one consideration for me is data security.  Not how secure is it, but how open is it.  If for example you want to run an internal workplace community a platform such as Ning is not ideal whereas Jive will be too expensive for a lot of companies.  Whilst a lot of companies are taking a strategic view of such ideas they are not necessarily expecting to invest £250k to achieve this with a yet unproven outcome.  We are very much in the "land grab" scenario at the moment with very few UK providers but there are some.  As I'll be at the event in Olympia I will be looking out for some alternatives as community building, internal and external, is key to any talent management strategy.

If any one is also going or wants to meet up post TRULondon I'll be around on 15/16 March.

Building a community - you get out what you put in - yes it takes time!

The next time a recruiter complains they do not have time to use social media to build a community of great candidates remind them why vegetables are often tasteless these days; a bit much like most of their (candidate) relationships.  You can force nature but you ultimately pay the price!

Social Media World Forum - London - Enterprise Solutions

Just over 12-months ago I wrote a report about Social Media in the Workplace hoping that social networks would be freely available to all employees.  So how does it look now?

Who's buying who in the ATS market? Stepstone and Mr Ted anyone?

It is only a matter of time before Axel Springer finally acquire Stepstone. For further details read:

STATEMENT BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF STEPSTONE ASA IN CONNECTION WITH THE MANDATORY OFFER MADE BY AXEL SPRINGER AG

The other rumour on the mill is that Mr Ted are being acquired by Success Factors.

Onboarding new hires

A long time ago we put in place a system for a client called the First System.  It was designed to improve retention of new hires as they could show that where someone stayed beyond 12-months, they would often stay 3+ years.  But, 70% of new hires left BEFORE the first 12-months!