“Our #1 opportunity is to build a competitive advantage, not to build benefit plans for our organization” –VP of HR Cisco I’ve met/ worked for over 100 VP’s of HR and dozens of CEO’s over the last few years and although there are clearly exceptions, I’ve found that CEO’s and …

HR “work” can be classified into five distinct levels from the basic to the most strategic. Those levels include: Level One –Information Management and Basic Transactions Every HR department must provide basic information, answer employee and manager questions and complete operational level transactions. These most would agree are the oldest …

Why it's essential to avoid layoffs Laying off thousands of workers is not only embarrassing, it's also expensive. Because the company has invested thousands of dollars in recruiting and training these employees, it makes no sense to release them in large numbers. The negative publicity related to the lay off …

"Leading indicators or precursors are events or data points that generally occur shortly before an event materializes.” There are two types of warning signs for indicating that there is a coming upturn in employment.  The first group contains precursors that are internal to the company.  These precursors are generally changes …

In addition, the increased access to the Internet coupled with better hardware and software means that metrics can be calculated almost instantly and reported to almost anyone at minimal costs.  Fields that used to rely on intuition such as marketing, purchasing (now known as supply chain) and manufacturing have made …

Most Recruiting Activities Are Not Strategic in Scope Almost everything that an individual recruiter does is intended to resolve an immediate need and is therefore operational or tactical in nature. Because the scope of the outcome is so limited, it is nearly impossible for any single instance to rise to …

Recruiters are a strange lot; thousands flock to the Internet each year looking for out-of-the-box recruiting tools, but they often reject what they find because it seems too different. If you're one of the faint-of-heart recruiters, stop reading, because there's no way you're going to have the courage to explain …

As the economy heats up and firms once again look to build up their talent strength, it’s only logical that senior leaders, managers and HR professionals will increasingly look at retention as a major business imperative. But as a professional who has been designing retention solutions for corporations for well …

Diversity recruiting is becoming more and more important as the world becomes more global. Initially, legal compliance was the primary driver behind most diversity recruiting. But now organizations have learned that if they want to operate around the world, they must be able to recruit and retain individuals who are …

As the earliest proponent of speed of hire, I am pleased that so many managers and recruiters have come to the realization that reducing the time that it takes to hire someone is critical if you want to 1) get currently employed top performers and 2) minimize the “damages” that …