Skilled technical professionals are in high demand worldwide. Here’s a view from BlessingWhite’s study, Leading Technical Professionals 2006. It shows just how challenging the retention of these key employees is by region and in selected industries.

In its ongoing research on Employee Satisfaction, The Conference Board has measured a disturbing trend of growing job dissatisfaction. U.S. Job Satisfaction Declines, it reports.

“Today, less than half of all Americans say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent twenty years ago.”

We commented on the SHRM results that correlate to this trend back in December with Is Everyone Out Shopping…for Jobs? and Misunderstanding of Employee Satisfaction by HR.

So now we know that more than half of the employees out looking and more than half of the companies are not doing anything about it. Could that be why so many are out shopping for a new job? Not enough organizations are making them feel like they should stay. Maybe it’s time to push internal mobility programs to the front burner, before it’s too late.

The recently passed Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 prohibits discrimination based on genetic information in employment and healthcare insurance. It adds another legal requirement for compliance. Critics, though, don’t view genetic discrimination as a front-burner employment issue.

In contrast, OFCCP/EEOC compliance looms much larger for corporate liability risk. Taleo is offering a webcast, OFCCP Internet Applicant Definition - One Year Later, Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. PT that will cover:

• Common lingering issues with the original Internet Applicant Definition.
• Real-world advice on how you can adjust your strategies for success.
• New OFCCP FAQs and clarifications and how they can impact you.

Register today for essential OFCCP compliance information including guideline updates and compliance best practices from the experts: Carla Irwin, President, Carla Irwin & Associates, and Lisa Kobe Cross, Assessment and Compliance Consultant.

Many years ago – when I was first analyzing and writing about the intersection of Internet technology and recruiting – the refrain I often heard was “but the executive level is not searching the Web for jobs; it’s only for the managers and below.” You don’t hear that argument much anymore.

As noted before, job boards are getting more specialized and are combining with social networking sites. Here’s some interesting data from an exec-level job board survey:

• Sixty-four percent (64%) of its members are currently employed.
• Of those presently employed, thirty-eight percent (38%) of those are motivated to move into a new position.
• Twenty-five percent (25%) are open to new opportunities.

Today, when recruiting high-level executives, you can use the power of Internet as part of your recruiting strategy.

Here’s a follow up to our Expectations for Employment High in Singapore entry. Are talent management practices universal? Or do retention and motivation factors vary by business region?

ISR’s white paper How To Retain & Motivate Your Talent: Results of ISR’s Asia Pacific Talent Survey reveals how management culture influences retention. They surveyed 3,000 employees in 120 companies and found that talent engagement rates vary dramatically across the region. In the Asia Pacific region, employees expect:

• leaders to demonstrate that decisions are consistent with the values and objectives of the organisation;
• leaders to encourage an environment of constant learning; and
• that all employees are treated with respect.

ISR also found that talent management practices are key to attracting, retaining, and engaging high performers:

“In addition to the Talent management practices that engage high performing employees, Leadership and Company Brand or Image are also revealed as key drivers of Talent engagement. These findings should encourage companies around the region to continue to focus on building an attractive employment brand.”

Your employment brand experience starts with your career sites. The front ends of your talent management systems should be tailored to the region you are targeting. You need globally consistent automated processes to drive efficiency. But you also must have the local flexibility in your global foundation to achieve success.

I guess it's Valentine's Day for Taleo when you read these two recent posts:

I Love On-Demand

I Love Taleo

Happy Valentine's all!

The Hudson Report: Employment and HR Trends, Singapore, Q1 2007 paints a rosy picture of this growing economy – especially if you’re in the market for a job or a job change.

“Employment expectations are rising and companies express a high level of optimism about future performance. But the other side of the coin is severe competition for staff. Companies recognise they must be prepared to look at the packages they offer which would now include significant increases in salaries and bonuses in order to attract appropriately talented individuals.”
—Mark Sparrow, Country Manager, Hudson, Singapore

With a robust economy comes increased employee turnover. This study found nearly one-third (32%) of respondents in all sectors experienced staff turnover of more than 10% in the past year, with the IT&T and Banking sectors reporting the highest levels.

Staff poaching is identified as the most significant cause of staff turnover. If you do business in Singapore, it’s time to tune up your talent management best practices…

A study released from the The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Cranfield School of Management, titled HR and technology: impact and advantages, explores the relationship between system implementation and the support needed for effective HR practices.

It corroborates the findings of our research on the connection – or actually the gap – between IT and strategic HR. Although these are both UK-based studies, the findings certainly apply across geographies.

We recently presented on the HCI Quality of Hire webcast with Taleo customer Dell. The tremendous interest in the subject was not surprising. Really, quality of hire represents the most upstream driver of corporate performance. McKinsey research shows that quality of hire is becoming even more important.

Here it is—in characteristic McKinsey-speak:

Three categories of American jobs:

1. Transformational: extracting raw materials or converting them into finished goods.

2. Transactional: interactions that can easily be scripted or automated.

3. Tacit: complex interactions requiring a high level of judgment.

The analysis shows that quality is becoming even more important because the jobs people perform are getting more and more complicated.

• In the past six years, jobs that emphasize “tacit interactions” have grown two and a half times as fast as the number of transactional jobs and three times as fast as employment in general.

• These jobs now make up some 40% of the US labor market and account for 70% of the jobs created since 1998.

The studies keep rolling in. The Angela Mortimer Salary Survey 2007, The blue book, surveys 1,000 job seekers and over 700 businesses, revealing that 78% of companies struggled to attract the staff they wanted in 2006. Many experienced a longer and more expensive recruitment process compared to 2005.

The situation is even more pronounced in Europe, with 97% of companies in Brussels and 86% of companies in Paris complaining that the recruitment market was challenging in 2006.

Additional findings:
1. 31% of companies found an increasing number of applicants withdrawing from the recruitment process.
2. 26% experienced an increase in the number of jobs declined by candidates, particularly in Manchester (31%) and in Brussels (32%).
3. 43% of employers found that more candidates increased their financial demands at offer stage.

Pressure on the European hiring market is clearly increasing. Now is the time for European companies to revisit sourcing and hiring processes for automation opportunities.

More validation on growth and expected hiring in the Asia-Pacific and emerging markets comes in the findings from The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Confidence Index, January 2007.

These high expectations for hiring provide yet another good reason to streamline and optimize your hiring process to compete in this hot global market for talent.