(Editor’s note: This is Part III in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1 and Part II; next week in the conclusion to the series, look for best practices and program metrics.) When corporate revenues are down or stagnant, talent managers typically shift their focus away from volume hiring to developing and improving …

Last week, Part 1 of this series introduced a number of pain points that render most corporate approaches to managing internal movement for development, retention, and talent ROI purposes ineffective. In reality, most current approaches are relics from years of tradition, loosely defined, poorly integrated, and barely managed. During this installment, I will …

It has been an amazing year in recruiting and talent management, despite severe economic hardships, budget cuts, and widespread hiring freezes. Unlike the economic turmoil following 9/11 and the dot-com bubble burst, many recruiting functions have continued to innovate and stretch the limits of what can be defined as “standard …

For many in corporate staffing, contingent labor management is an unpleasant activity often relegated to the lowest-cost outsourced service provider the organization could find, mainly because no one internally wanted to deal with it. The work is largely considered mundane, process-oriented, and as a necessary overhead cost that provides little …

You can’t read a newspaper these days without reading about organizations that are implementing employee furloughs in order to save money and to avoid layoffs. They might seem like a good idea but they might end up not saving money at all and could cause more turmoil than they are …

Impacting Business Results Makes You a Hero During tough times, there is increased pressure on every business function to demonstrate a direct (positive) impact on business performance. The functions that successfully demonstrate business measures like revenue, time-to-market, market share, and profit receive the majority of the attention and available resources. …

The Referral Concept The basic premise of all employee referral programs is that “the very best” know other top individuals. They get to know them because top performers learn from and compare themselves to other top performers. Professionals are constantly talking to each other on the phone, through text messaging, …

Things to Do Offer rewards. Surprisingly, many people associated with a university are willing to make referrals with no promise of a reward. Why? Because they really believe in the abilities of the students they know and work with. You don’t need to give away a flat-screen TV in order …

Most Firms Utilize the Traditional Approach I estimate that 95% of corporate college recruiting programs follow the traditional model because everyone is familiar with it and they are simply comfortable using it. I sometimes call the traditional model the “career center focus” model because it relies so heavily on services …

A) Negative impacts on revenue and costs Obviously, not expanding your staff or keeping open positions vacant can save payroll dollars in the short term. However, such savings may actually present a false reality because freezes have many other unintended consequences that CFOs often fail to account for: Lost revenue. …