We read an excellent column by Kevin Wheeler called Managing Talent. Kevin articulates three key points that happen to align nicely with our vision of talent management here at Taleo.

1. Become a talent manager, not a recruiter.

Yes, this is becoming important for success. But it requires easy access to relevant information. To be a talent manager, you have to be able to measure and monitor talent management processes.

Towards that goal, Taleo’s talent management dashboard brings reporting and analytics information directly to the desktop. You can track: Time to Fill, Filled positions, Requisition aging, Acceptance rates, Declined Offers, and Source Yield right out of the box.

2. Insist on rigor in job descriptions and hiring manager requirements.

Again, we wholeheartedly agree. Structured data has long been one of our foundations. Our requisition wizard helps recruiters leverage job templates and skills from an existing library to develop a set of talent requirements. Our approach is very structured with specific skills tied to each job requisition.

That front end work pays off on the back end. Once the structured data is completed on the demand side, similar information is captured on the supply side for talent sourcing. Much of the low-value portion of the screening and selection process is automated. For example, Direct Energy reported its hiring cycle time went from 67 to 35 days through precision matching of only best fit candidates.

3. Adopt and start using talent management technology.

We agree and believe that organizations must use technology as a platform for enterprise talent management initiatives. In addition to supporting more than 30% of the Fortune 100, we are very proud that our clients are known for recruiting best practices.

For example, these Taleo clients were recognized by ERE:
• Best Corporate Careers Website: Deloitte
• Best College Recruiting Program: Whirlpool
• Most Strategic Use of Recruiting Technology: Hewlett-Packard

In addition, The 2006 Workforce Magazine Optimas Award recognized these Taleo customers for talent initiatives that directly improve business results:
• General Excellence: Intel
• Global Outlook: Deloitte
• Overall Vision: UnitedHealth Group

When you read the article, notice the subtitle:

It is time to change the way you think about talent.

We couldn’t have said it any better.

Here’s an interesting problem to have. Self-service costs companies less in labor expenses and can be the cornerstone of a profitable business strategy. But in Sweden, due to the relatively high costs of hiring people, self-service has become an economic requirement. Newsweek International reports on the phenomenon:

“It's so expensive to hire people in Sweden that companies from IKEA on down would much rather you helped yourself, thank you…The constant battle by business to get around high labor costs is evident everywhere in Sweden. Here, the gap between high and low salaries is much narrower than in almost any other modern economy. The typical Swedish waiter, say, makes €23,000 a year, or about a quarter of what a Swedish CEO takes home. In Britain, the waiter would earn much less (€17,628), the CEO much more (€164,788). In the United States, the gap would be wider still. Thus, in IKEA-syndrome Sweden, the restaurant world looks very different. McDonald's thrives, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. study, but its fast-food competitor Pizza Hut, with bigger tables and larger serving staff, struggles.”

So it is neither a paucity of jobs nor a scarcity of available labor that is creating this conundrum, but the realities of compensation and cultural structures. Businesses in all industries have created new business models centered on self-service. Think about how the self-service IKEA Syndrome touches your life the next time you walk their aisles, write up your own order, load your own cart, deliver the boxes to your home, and assemble your piece of furniture.

Sirota Survey Intelligence specializes in what they call attitude research. Here is an example of their interesting research. Based on an opportunity sample of approximately 100 HR professionals representing Fortune 500 companies and other organizations, they found:

How do these conclusions track with your current challenges and outlook?

The findings in Human Resource Management Practices and Firm Performance in Small Businesses—a Cornell University/Gevity Institute Research Report—again validate the studies and survey results we are seeing over and over, like in the Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index work.

HR best practices make a bottom-line difference. And that difference can be quantified for organizations of all sizes. Look at these research results for small businesses:

So the research is clear and should be convincing. That’s the easy part. The challenge is implementing effective best practices. That’s the hard part. However, it’s worth it because you can reap a large return from a relatively small investment. For many small businesses, starting with an online recruiting system is a great step in that direction.

A press release email came through titled, “College Grad Resumes Need Help.” It outlined the results of a survey conducted nationally using an online poll placed on the CollegeGrad.com homepage during September 2006. The results are based on approximately 850 respondents.

The main finding: 72% of College Students and Recent Grads Don't Have a Resume or Say Theirs Needs Help. The release goes on to outline the importance of having a resume, as well as the services available to help create or refine one.

On its face, there is nothing wrong here. But it strikes us as the wrong answer to the right problem. Recent college grads may not have resumes, but nonetheless, they have skills. If your organization targets entry-level candidates and participates in campus recruiting, make sure your application process is designed to capture their information without requiring a resume…since most of them don’t have one!

The Wall Street Journal’s career columnist admonishes readers – many of whom are hiring managers – to remember that applicants believe a rude selection process mirrors working conditions. Employers should treat job prospects as customers and invited guests.

According to the Computerworld article, Google Catches Flak for Its Hiring Procedures: Lengthy process turns off some IT pros, developers, it seems Google is learning this lesson. Hiring is hot at Google…but top talent is pushing back and Google is having to streamline the hiring process to meet demands for talent.

An efficient hiring process with automated workflow goes a long way towards capturing the enthusiasm of applicants and hiring the top candidates you want. If your process is any combination of slow, cumbersome, or disrespectful, top talent will take their skills elsewhere - even if you have the market cap and brand perception of Google.

Employer of choice initiatives succeed when your hiring process experience reflects the same high performance culture you work so hard to establish.

Healthcare isn’t the only industry complaining about the lack of skilled candidates. For all the talk of the US losing manufacturing jobs, there are apparently still plenty of factory jobs to be filled. In fact, there are more open positions than skilled workers to go around.

Here’s a proactive approach to solving the problem by a Washington non-profit group. The Manufacturing Skill Standards Council has created a nationwide program to train, test, and certify workers in entry-level skills for openings among today's 10 million factory jobs. The goal is to credential 4 million workers in the next 10 years.

Quipped Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, “We call this 'No Worker Left Behind.”

By all accounts, the heavy demand for healthcare professionals is still on the rise—especially for nurses—with no immediate prospects for improvement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects registered nursing jobs will grow 26% in hospitals and 45% in ambulatory care, accounting for 74% of the 623,000 projected increase in employment of registered nurses from 2002 through 2012.

Watson Wyatt’s study, Strategic Rewards and Retention Practices in the Health Care Sector: 2006/2007 Report, reveals more:

• 69% of health care organizations are having trouble retaining critical-skill employees to a moderate or great extent, compared with 43% of organizations across all industries.

• Retaining registered nurses is the most difficult staffing challenge facing health care providers, with 84% listing it among their top three staffing challenges, followed by pharmacists (39%) and rehab therapists (33%).

I’m sure this isn’t news if you’re working in healthcare today, but it serves to reinforce the need for a proactive approach – and a long-term view – towards talent acquisition and retention practices in the face of an unrelenting need. Technology support for managing candidate pools can help track information on future and also current skilled nurses.

For yet more insights into healthcare hiring, read the BusinessWeek cover story titled What’s Really Propping Up the Economy.

You can’t improve a process that you can’t measure. That’s why it’s so important to be able to measure, analyze, and optimize your staffing and deployment strategies. Not only can you see your own performance, but you can also compare that performance with other organizations through benchmarking.

You can find out more in our free white paper. Measure, Report, Analyze, and Improve: Turning Analytics into Action describes good metrics and outlines a five step methodology to implement a successful analytics strategy.

What are the benefits? In one survey, 62% of Taleo users said they had used talent management metrics to achieve:
• Better tracking/measurement of employee referrals.
• Improved EEO reporting.
• Reductions in cycle times and time to fill.
• Improved accuracy.

These users now have an award-winning tool to drive improved performance. Taleo Reporting and Analytics™ was just named a Top HR Product of the Year by Human Resource Executive magazine.

Today, technology and information can synch your staffing processes with real business outcomes. It’s the right time to turn analytics into action.

Two independent studies have reported similar findings. Skill and talent shortages are a problem in Canada and a majority of respondents acknowledge the situation. The studies also offer two creative strategies for success in a tight labour market: (1) attract and retain, (2) retrain and retain.

The Hewitt Associates survey called Canadian Employers Struggle to Attract and Retain Employees concludes:

Canadian organizations of all sizes, in all parts of the country, and in all industries are finding it challenging to attract and retain employees, according to an extensive survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company. As a result, a majority of the 232 survey respondents are implementing new programs focused on flexibility to address the problem.

More than half the respondents cited flexible hours and benefits as the most valuable way to attract and retain talent.

The Workplace Partners Panel (WPP) Viewpoints Survey titled Skills and Skills Shortages: The Views of Business, Labour, and Public Sector Leaders in Canada, released this finding:

The survey revealed that concerns about skills shortages have substantially increased since the first Viewpoints Survey was conducted in 1996. In that year, less than one-third of managers and only one in five labour leaders judged the shortage of skilled labour to be a serious problem. Today, well over 50% of managers along with nearly two-thirds of labour leaders describe it as a “serious problem” for the Canadian economy.

Skills shortages are a growing problem. The effects are being felt today. Solution? A true commitment to executing workplace training programs and making the related investments.

The Hewitt study suggests more flexible workplace policies and procedures to attract and retain talent. The WPP survey focuses on workplace training programs to improve the skills of existing workers. Both stress the need to more rapidly establish HR practices that support the strategies. Most importantly, these studies illustrate the opportunity of using talent management as a framework for strategic success.

How much attention should be paid to one-half of a company’s total budget allocation? Consider this finding from a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Trendsetter Barometer” survey:

“CEOs of the nation's fastest-growing private companies are spending almost 50 percent of their company’s total budget on their workforce, yet less than a third have formal programs in place to retain key employees. Moreover, less than a third regularly discuss retention issues during management meetings, or understand why key employees are leaving the company.

“Additionally, with 22 percent revenue growth projected over the next 12 months, 80 percent of these companies are planning net job additions--with an overall workforce increase of more than 9 percent expected. However, nearly half the CEOs surveyed (49 percent) are concerned that a shortage of qualified workers could limit the growth of their company in the year ahead. Similarly, 38 percent see scarcity of skilled, trained workers as potentially creating a barrier in the form of pressure for increased wages.”

It appears there is still a disconnect between cost and proactive talent management on the executive floor. With all the business press coverage on talent driving performance, why does managing your largest investment still remain a mystery?

Baseline magazine recently published their 50 Fastest-Growing Software Companies for 2006 study based on year-to-year growth performance from 2004 to 2005.

First, here are the caveats. Only public companies with at least $10 million in revenue were considered. Nearly 40% of the companies grew through acquisitions which contributed to total revenue growth. And companies with major non-software businesses were not considered.

So what’s so interesting about the results? Eight of the top ten and 36% of the 50 fastest growing software companies are on demand vendors that offer their software as a service. We believe this trend demonstrates further market validation of the on demand software model. Software as a service offers a more successful alternative to traditional licenses due to faster implementation, lack of IT maintenance, and 100% accountability for business processes and uptime performance.

How did Taleo do? Our healthy 33.7% growth rate during the period ranked us at #44. But among those listed in the category of talent management, we are #1!