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We quickly adjust to some things. It wasn't all
that long ago that a visit to a "filling station" included a somewhat
friendly greeting, a windshield wash and the filling of the gas tank by a
person. Self-service, now considered the norm came as the result of intersecting
trends. As gasoline costs rose in the 70s, one way to save a little per gallon
was to fill the tank yourself. The gas station attendants were usually from the
pool of mechanics who fixed the cars of customers. As car quality improved and
the tools required to maintain them became prohibitively expensive, the number
of mechanics with necessary skills declined. It is now nearly impossible to find
a mechanic outside of a dealership and the friendly smiles have been replaced by
grumpy cashiers. Labor shortages, whether caused by demographics,
shifts in quality or technological obsolescence mean that the fabric of our
lives changes as a result. In the old days, there was never a chance that you'd
turn up in a meeting smelling like gasoline. There are little hints everywhere. It's not so
much of an inconvenience to fill your own cup with soda at a fast food joint
(although it's irritating that the price didn't fall when we began supplying the
labor.) We fill our own cups because labor is scarce in the low end of the
status ladder. (See Nickel
and Dimed) We will all do little more of this and that as a compensation for
missing service help. At some grocery stores in our neighborhood, they already
expect us to bag our own groceries. We do our own typing, answer our own phones,
make our own copies, self-serve our benefits, and use the net to make our travel
arrangements. Unless you are in downtown Manhattan, coffee-to-go means fixing
the additives yourself. The labor shortage will have more subtle
consequences like these in the early days. More buffet lines, more self-service,
more additional assembly required, more pick it up at our dock, longer waits,
longer lines, less service in general. The acute nursing shortage is liable to
result in the certification of family members to provide services in a
self-serve hospital. It already has produced shorter hospital stays and higher
incidents of hospital generated disease. Yesterday, we
reviewed Work 2.0, a new book that is sure to be a bestseller. The book
focuses on the shifting social contract between the best and brightest and their
employers suggesting that an employer is now accountable for ensuring that time
wasting crap, whether caused by the bureaucracy or embedded in the tools, is
removed from the job. With some justification, the hard to acquire high-end
talent is starting to refuse the make-work that has long been understood to be
part of the dues paying of large organizational membership. Work 2.0 suggests
that these folks need to be treated like investors who get very routine updates
on the state of the return on their investment. It's the tip of the iceberg. The very difficult
work of acquiring and maintaining the "talent that makes the
difference" is going to get harder and more time consuming. Old fogies will
see at as the radical reinvention of the term "Prima Donna". The
dissonance between old established players and the new, young, privileged
"fair haired girls" will rock the internal political structures of
older and larger companies. Although we've had some experience with disparities
in pay during engineering shortages, walking the line that prevents age
discrimination will be the governing mechanism. The degree to which employees have a say in the
direction and policies of the company is on the line. Because the cost of
switching jobs will be so low, the work required to continually re-recruit the
workforce will have immediate and measurable payoffs. We're talking about a
world in which 20% attrition rates are considered excellent examples of how to
do it. We're talking about doubling and tripling the recruiting staff and
budget just to stay even. We're talking about three or four years from now. This is the calm before the storm. Once we begin
moving people around the economy this time, it will be the beginning of an ever
accelerating cycle that just gets harder and faster. The demand for measurable
results in service quality and production will increase as the ability to
deliver them declines. This would be an awfully good time to carefully
consider your five year recruiting strategy. What are the demands? What are the
sources? How are you going to compete? We've just finished the 2002
Electronic Recruiting Index. It provides a number of interesting ways to
think about the coming challenges. From design guidance for corporate employment
sites to a review of Job Board In a Box providers, from Trend Analysis to Market
opportunities, it provides a frame of reference for thinking about the next
steps.
"Niche Job
Sites are more effective" - Forrester Research
study
For Special Niche Site
Promotions click here
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