We’ve written before about not losing your head when you tighten your belt. Now there are more numbers that back up what we intuitively know about happy employees and the hidden costs of layoffs. How you handle recessionary talent management reflects directly on your employment brand which affects business performance.

The Economist’s Profiting from happiness article shows how good companies to work for are also good investments because of superior performance. This relates in principle to studies which found a connection between companies that use talent management and achieve higher performance.

Portfolio’s The Hidden Cost of Layoffs provides insights into the unexpected results of layoffs on your workforce and the detriments to performance.

How to avoid death by a thousand cuts cites findings by the Center for Creative Leadership that indicate higher motivation in companies that foster trust in challenging times.

Listen to the Brand from the Inside: Proven Strategies for Engaging Employees webcast presented by Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann, co-authors of Brand From the Inside: Eight Essentials to Emotionally Connect Your Employees to Your Business, to find out how building an employment brand from the inside out emotionally engages employees and candidates.

Many businesses are feeling the economic pinch. But according to SurePayroll's January 2009 Small Business Scorecard, small businesses are showing better performance than larger organizations. Even in a tough economy, businesses are hiring.

Small and medium-sized businesses that focus on talent management—including recruiting and retention strategies—can maximize performance, especially in these recessionary times.

Consider attending one of our special seminars for quantitative analysis and actionable insights on how to cut costs, improve efficiency, align people to business goals, and power organizational change. Taleo will be joined by Knowledge Infusion and Intelius for a lively discussion about Making Every Head Count.

HR and talent management leaders need to take a holistic view of talent management if they want to aid their organizations in surviving this recession and position correctly for the inevitable recovery.

Recessionary Management: The Top DOs and DON’Ts for Managing Talent in the Current Downturn outlines how HR leaders can make the right talent decisions today, whether their organization is retrenching, maintaining, or expanding.

Key findings of the study by Taleo Research and the Human Capital Institute show that while some organizations intend to take advantage of the bounty of talent now on the market, most will struggle with the challenges of selective hiring while letting others go. Many also need to upgrade technology to make progress on the initiatives they value.

Just look at the difference between the practices respondents need to preserve their bottom line and brand compared to their use of technology.

Technology Application to Most Valued Recessionary Practices

Except in performance management where technology nearly matches value perception, there is sub-optimal use of technology support for essential talent management processes.

Our second annual employee study of how much employees love their jobs found that most workers enjoy, feel important, or like what they do…yet only 15% love their job enough to marry it. More troubling are these survey findings:

• Two out of five workers are open to looking for a new position.
• 13% are actively pursuing new opportunities.

And that’s in today’s anxious recessionary environment.

So on Valentine’s Day, love may be in the air, but the survey findings call for action on the ground. Just as any successful long-term relationship requires, employees need to be constantly courted to remain engaged and highly productive.

Talent management practices which help drive employee engagement are not singular events, but need to be components of an ongoing process that fosters interaction about performance, and visibility into career opportunities in the organization.

Clear communication around corporate goals and each employee’s role can go a long way towards driving corporate results through employee performance.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's tracking survey, the number of adult Internet users who have a social networking profile has risen from 8% to 35% in four years. Social networking is no longer only a recruiting tactic or a quirky habit of Generation Y. It’s gone mainstream.

Social Networks Grow: Friending Mom and Dad explains how even though the largest percentage of users (75%) is still in the 18-24 year old range, the overall growth has extended throughout the demographics.

More than half of UK employers surveyed say Graduates Don't Just Want to Use Social Networking in the Work Place They Expect It.

Web-based networking is just one use of technology that is increasing its value among jobseekers and employees. More broadly, a national survey found that four in five workers said access to technology is important to their capacity to be creative (78%) and productive (80%) at work.

• 80% said that such technology gives their employer an edge in the marketplace.

• 39% surveyed said they would consider changing jobs if it meant having access to more up-to-date technology.

The survey respondents are not exclusively IT workers, just as all the social networkers are not Millennials. Today, technology tools can help you connect with and retain talent. That talent also use the tools for greater productivity. Talent management professionals can use up-to-date technology tools to achieve both benefits.

In lock step with layoffs is news of less robust recruiting functions and recruiter layoffs.

Google laying off recruiters describes how the former top employment brand has made changes to recruiting.

Headhunters get the ax explains that less hiring demand means less need for recruiting supply.

Out-of-Work Sourcers describes how some HR staffing functions are being cut.

Are there alternatives? How about repurposing recruiters into other initiatives such as succession planning, performance management, and retention of top talent to mitigate the costs of turnover? After all, recruiters are people specialists.

The Human Capitalist makes the point well in: Should Recruiters Be Planning Succession?

And Josh Bersin outlines Five Reasons to Focus on Recruiting in 2009.

Wholesale purges of the recruiting function are bad for the employment brand and bad business. Because when the economy recovers and your company needs people, who will be there to recruit them? Your renewed growth will be hamstrung by a significant delay in hiring the recruiters who will hire the rest of your innovative talent.

Instead of incurring that cost, apply recruiters’ skills to today’s organizational talent needs and stand ready for tomorrow.