Personal Information Security
Quietly, a number of folks have noted that you can accomplish everything
that happened in the Monster
Security Mess with a copy of
InfoGist.
InfoGist is a pretty standard resume search automation tool. It goes and
collects resumes on your behalf and then manages them. Managing resumes
includes tracking, emailing, deep review and so on.
(Read More)
Reveille and Hyperbole: Jobing.com, the nation's largest, locally-focused online recruitment media provider, announced that it is acquiring CanJobs.com, a network of more than 140 local city, provincial and industry-specific domains in Canada. Jobing.com acquired the assets from Ontario-based VentureLabour.com, a Farms.com company. The agreement marks the ninth acquisition for Jobing.com and comes on the heels of being named on the Inc. 500™ list of fastest-growing companies for the third consecutive year.
SmartPost, the innovative online job posting and sourcing optimization product from Bernard Hodes Group, announced the initiation of the SmartPost Index. This first of its kind Index will set the standard for recruiters in all industries to better predict candidate flow for specific hiring needs in specific geographic locations. Initial results from the Index are to be released in September.
eJobFairs.net, a California LLC based in Roseville, CA with offices in Portage, Michigan, has launched the newest version of its unique, dynamic, internet job fair service. Version 3.0 allows for real time text chats, faster account creation times for job seekers and employers, as well as our exclusive freedom from the booth service. "We believe that we are driving the future of recruiting by offering our innovative live electronic career fair. No more wasting resources by having people out of the office, no more phone tag with potential employees, our service makes the process of hiring a breeze," said Jason Vrane, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer.
Deck Chairs: Paul Baugher has joined Buck Consultants as a Director in its St. Louis office. Baugher joins Buck from Towers Perrin. His expertise covers the full range of retirement plan issues, including plan design, valuations, forecasting, and accounting standards
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Rob Goren has joined Buck Consultants as a Director in its Atlanta office. Goren joins Buck from CompBenefits Corporation, where he served as Vice President and Actuary. His expertise includes benefit design cost analyses, dental and vision experience rating, calculation of reserves, medical plan pricing, claims analyses, and utilization and billing pattern analyses
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Deborah Ruffins has joined Buck Consultants as a Director and Vice President of Marketing. She is located in the firm's New York office. Ruffins joins Buck from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she most recently served as Director of Sales Strategy, responsible for driving revenue growth in the NY Metro Advisory Practice
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Deep Release: Organizations with Low Employee Retention Need to "Unpack" Underlying Issues, Says Corporate Counseling Associates
Workforce consulting firm urges interconnected approach to ensuring employee development, onboarding programs, culture integration and work-life balance
Organizations that cite workforce retention struggles typically have a host of interconnected problems beneath the surface, says workforce consulting firm Corporate Counseling Associates (CCA). As a result, CCA is helping companies "unpack" their issues to discover underlying problems.
Creative approaches are needed before top-performing employees are lost in the dwindling talent pool, says the firm, which has developed new principles and roadmaps to help companies achieve talent management success.
"Businesses are turning to us for help with retention issues, but we're increasingly finding those issues are symptoms of a much larger problem," explains Steve Salee, vice president of consultative services for CCA. "The core problem usually stems from a lack of talent management and onboarding programs, which triggers a ‘ripple effect' across recruiting, hiring and retaining, as well as professional development and succession planning."
With the workforce talent pool shrinking and employees seeking greater flexibility, organizations need to redouble their talent management efforts or risk losing top performers to competitors with progressive approaches. Illustrating the need for flexible thinking is a July 2007 survey from the Pew Research Center, which found that 60 percent of working mothers prefer part-time work rather than full-time – compared to 48 percent a decade earlier.
Corporate consolidations are also straining employee cultures. Companies once merged businesses, but now mega-organizations merge internal business units without always considering the need to integrate cultures.
"Companies can no longer afford to be fuzzy, inefficient and disconnected when it comes to managing their employees," adds Salee. "The changes in the marketplace demand that a corporate culture be connected and precise."
Different challenges require different approaches. CCA's multilayered approach "unpacks" a company's overall retention struggle into various component pieces, addressing each aspect with steps that work within an existing corporation's culture – rather than stamp a pre-existing philosophy into place.
CCA experts stress that businesses need to "connect the dots" when modifying their traditional strategies. A talent management initiative should satisfy four guiding principles:
Persistence – A leadership team must be named and held responsible for overseeing and communicating ongoing success.
Flexibility – Onboarding, coaching, team-building and other elements must be flexible in design and execution to fit with different cultures, operations and priorities within the organization.
Accountability – Leaders and managers at all levels must be held accountable – financially and non-financially – for the initiative's success. Without accountability, this work is likely to be postponed or unfinished due to competing priorities.
Measurability – Success metrics must be established up front, implemented and reviewed to ensure effectiveness.
"The key is not to be overly cerebral, but rather to understand people and the workplace on a personal level," Salee adds. "Once in place, this approach can be scaled to any level, focusing on individuals, departments and the organization."
About Corporate Counseling Associates
Corporate Counseling Associates (CCA) started in 1984 with a passion for helping people, and remains committed to helping companies get the most from their workforce. CCA helps companies identify and address workplace issues before they become costly problems. CCA understands business on a strategic level, and its programs help organizations support and improve employee performance with key service offerings such as EAP, work/life, talent management, executive coaching, content-rich training and consultative wellness.
With more than 20 years of experience and a global network of hand-picked consultants and in-house professionals, CCA employs flexibility, agility and creative thinking to deliver high-impact performance results. For more information, call (212) 686-6827 or visit www.corporatecounseling.com.
So They Say: Employee Retention? Not a Problem When Training Your Leaders
Attracting and retaining employees is a topic of endless articles, conference sessions, books and Webcasts, as well as the basis – the "raison d'ętre" – for numerous product launches. Yet retaining talented employees, while requiring effort and focus, may not be such a dilemma, according to Impact Achievement Group.
Superior management practices and effective leadership are key missing ingredients in many organizations, evident in the many organizations that Rick Tate and Julie White, PhD., senior managing partners for the leadership development firm, have consulted with through the years.
Companies giving low priority to developing leaders may eventually realize a domino effect through the organization in terms of retention. Recent research by Gallup™ has shown that competitive pay, benefits, and amenities are the market ante for any employee – superior, mediocre and poor performers. But according to Tate and White, how long people stay and how well they perform is determined in large part by their personal and professional relationships with their immediate supervisors.
"The exodus of talented individuals to other companies for positions with only a modest increase in pay or benefits is a compelling question," said Tate. "Why leave when there's not that much gain? Ultimately, it's because people don't leave companies – they leave managers." So when companies invest in developing competent leaders, they are aiming a direct salvo in the war for talented and committed employees.
Tate should know. He and White have been consulting and speaking for over two decades on the topic of leadership development, service quality, performance management, customer loyalty and communication aimed at solving problems.
Impact Achievement group offers some real world advice for companies: The quality of your managers defines your company. Do they conduct purposeful workplace discussions, effectively problem solve, create an environment which engages discretionary effort, and is their behavior aligned with the organizational values?, Do your managers ensure people have the opportunity to do their best, listen to the opinions of direct reports and do they hold people accountable to performance standards? And importantly, do they have a passion for leading others?
Leaders must understand what high performing direct reports demand from their work environment to engage their best efforts and loyalty:
Clearly communicated job requirements, focused on contributions instead of job tasks
Resources to do their best work
Ability to meaningfully participate it what affects them on the job
Genuine acknowledgement of their contributions
Genuine concern for their career
A performance review process that differentiates excellence
Impact Achievement Group, www.impactachievement.com, is a training and performance management consulting company that provides assessments, coaching, story-based interactive workshops, and simulations for managers at all levels of the organization. Impact Achievement Group helps companies dramatically improve leadership and management competency for bottom-line results. Company experts and co-authors of "People Leave Managers…Not Organizations", Rick Tate and Julie White, Ph.D. are internationally recognized authorities in leadership development, human performance, service quality and communications.