As 2006 comes to a close there’s no lack of predictions or discussion about what we’ll see in talent management in 2007. But how about in 2016? An interesting paper titled, “The way to work: Space, place and technology in 2016” explores four scenarios for a Blade Runner style future:

1. Disciples of the Cloud: Businesses control all intellectual property and determine where and when work takes place.
2. Electronic Cottages: Businesses control all intellectual property, but workers are able to determine where, when and how they work.
3. Replicants: Businesses depend on specialist consultants, their expertise and intellectual property. Work is much less predictable and reliable, but workers are free to choose where, when and how much they work.
4. Mutual Worlds: Businesses operate as cooperatives of independent contractors. Intellectual property is controlled by workers, who focus on small local ventures, often connected to networks of similar ventures elsewhere to give scale.

Clearly, strategies for effectively managing talent will become even more important business drivers as the years go by. What passes for science fiction today sometimes becomes a reality tomorrow. The report quotes the writer William Gibson's comment in The Economist, June 23, 2000:

"The future is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed."

Happy New Year!

The 2006 U.S. Job Retention Poll of 462 employees and 367 HR professionals, released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and The Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com, provides a troubling view for employers:

• More than 75 percent of employees are looking for new jobs.
• 73 percent of HR professionals are concerned about the voluntary resignations at their organizations.

Why are employees leaving?

Although a greater proportion of organizations reported implementing special retention processes in 2006 (49 percent) than in 2004 (35 percent), that still leaves more than half of organizations sitting by while their people leave. What to do? A strong internal mobility process can go a long way towards mitigating two out of the three top reasons for leaving. Mobility can also help reduce the negative impact of high turnover.

There are interesting—and encouraging—results from the 4th Annual Rocket-Hire Online Screening and Assessment Usage Survey. Using validated tools to drive a more rigorous, scientific hiring process is on the rise. Both the interest level is there, along with the widespread adoption of core ATS technology as the foundation of the process.

Among the survey findings:
1. Assessment usage has grown steadily from 2002-2006.
2. 62% of companies not using pre-screens or assessments plan to add them.
3. Behavioral assessment is seen as the next add-on to the staffing process after core ATS implementation.

The survey reported "Lack of Knowledge" and "Costs" as two of the biggest obstacles to an assessment purchase. Neither should be a valid reason today when assessments are another integrated step in an optimized talent acquisition process.

Our approach has always supported enhancing the art of talent acquisition by building the structured foundation of a scalable process. Assessment is an important tool that delivers improved quality of hire results. Rather than gambling on hiring a candidate because “I know the right one when I see them,” a single, focused assessment can gauge personality, cognitive, situational, and skill levels. Hiring can be a higher percentage endeavor than rolling the dice.

If your hiring decisions sometimes feel like you are rolling the dice, get the odds in your favor. Pre-hire assessments integrated into a systematic process give you that advantage.

The war for talent and the talent shortage have been widely debated. Many questions remain on the table. Is there really a demographic shortage? Are the baby boomers abandoning the workforce — or will they work beyond retirement age? How will legislation affect the numbers? Is the shortage only in certain industries — or just manifested in particular job functions?

Here’s a chart from the results of Manpower’s Talent Shortage and Wage Inflation Survey. It makes its own comment on the talent shortage centered in basic economics. When the talent supply/demand balance shifts towards demand — you have to pay more for the limited supply.

Do you currently subscribe to news, sports, or blog feeds to your MyYahoo or other portal page or mail page? If yes, then you will understand the benefits for recruiting: automated candidate connections, rapid sourcing, faster time to fill.

With RSS job agents, candidates can be notified of new positions immediately as they become available. If their current search criteria come up empty, with a couple of clicks they can add a link to their personal homepage to set up a feed for new openings that match those criteria as they arise.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. With Taleo Business Edition 7.5, RSS job agents have been enabled on all careers site job search results. Today’s latest browsers including Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox can view information syndicated in this form, including readers built into Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft Office Live.

Build your proprietary candidate pool and keep it stocked with people who apply for positions that are not currently open. You can automate your connection with passive candidates. Just because your top applicant’s preferences don’t match today’s open positions, it doesn’t mean they won’t fit tomorrow. This is a powerful Web 2.0 style sourcing technique.

New research from the Conference Board on jobseeker behavior shows two unexpected results:

1. Print and Internet job searching are equal sources for jobseekers.

2. The largest percentage of job offers came from the Internet search.

Our conclusion? Source candidates through a variety of media channels – as appropriate – then drive all your candidate traffic through your centralized corporate careers site to manage the process.

I was pleased to be a panelist on the HCI webcast, Finding and Grooming Top Local Talent. As more companies venture into more and more locations worldwide, stories about the challenges of global talent management take many twists and turns. Here’s one.

What happens when a country quickly becomes the #1 location in the world for the automotive industry? Anthony Stainer, VP Learning & Talent Sourcing at Faurecia, described this situation in Slovakia: 400,000 jobs with only 100,000 Slovakian workers capable of filling them. That’s not a war for talent – that’s a firestorm!

Ultimately, the efficacy of a global workforce strategy is determined by the local workforce demographics, along with the decisions of other industry players competing for the same talent. Are execs paying enough attention to this in the planning stages – or will Slovakia just be one example among many?

The e-recruitment software market has officially matured. Gartner has produced its first Magic Quadrant covering the space and it’s called: Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software, 2006.

The research note authored by Jim Holincheck covers the current state of e-recruitment, including a market overview, definition of effectiveness, market description, and evaluation criteria.

We are obviously pleased to see that Gartner positioned Taleo in the Leaders Quadrant for our completeness of vision and strong ability to execute. We are even happier to see e-recruiting reach this significant milestone.

Read the research note and learn more.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) conducted a global online survey of 153 executives in June 2006, supplementing the findings with 22 in-depth interviews, to produce Technology Executive Connections: Successful Strategies for Talent Management.

This is the third edition of PWC’s Technology Executive Connections series. The first survey probed technology executives on environmental issues and impacts; the second examined convergence and M&A challenges.

The focus of this survey shows talent management is becoming a more important issue for technology companies. The findings support the need to implement successful talent management strategies and practices.

The study’s four principal observations:

1. A priority with failing grades. Many technology executives are making human capital management a greater priority, but the survey shows they do not have a high regard for their firms’ capabilities in this area.

2. Acquiring hybrids. Executives are beginning to experience a painful scarcity for the essential employee: that talented, technically-savvy individual who can collaborate, innovate, and manage change.

3. Harvesting talent from within. Technology companies worldwide are focusing on personnel development and training, and, by inference, on the retention of new hires and existing personnel.

4. Managing global markets and global talent. Nearly half of all technology companies say they difficulty finding technical talent in emerging markets, and just under half say these difficulties include the retention of skilled people around the globe.

Here’s two other resources on how you can use talent management to make a difference: Hidden ROI of Talent Acquisition & Mobility: The Executive's Primer and Make Your Hiring Process Faster, Better, and Cheaper: An Action Framework for Your Organization.