The Productivity Blog

i4cp Awards FedEx Express with Its 2010 Productivity Pioneer Award

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:00:00 GMT

FedEx Express (NYSE:FDX) was awarded the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) 2010 Productivity Pioneer Award today during a presentation at i4cp's 38th Annual Member Conference. This award is presented annually to an i4cp member company that has demonstrated unique and successful programs to increase workforce productivity within their organization. Dennis Reber, Manager of Organization Effectiveness Solutions at FedEx Express, received the award.

"FedEx Express is extremely proud to receive i4cp's Productivity Pioneer Award," said Reber. "Having seen tremendous results from our various employee initiatives, it's great to be honored by an organization such as the Institute for Corporate Productivity for our accomplishments and focus on high performance."

The Employee Loyalty Index (ELI) at FedEx Express complements i4cp's core focus of leveraging human capital as a driver for increased market performance. The ELI is a tool that gauges multiple indicators of employee loyalty - and other critical factors that drive this commitment - on an ongoing basis. The information is then used to develop proactive processes and forward-thinking initiatives. The index is not designed to simply measure loyalty for loyalties sake, but to act on the premise that loyal employees help to build customer loyalty, and, in turn, greater profits.

"I'm thrilled to present this year's award to FedEx Express, a longtime member of i4cp," said Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp, the world's largest vendor-free network of corporations focused on building and sustaining a highly productive, high-performance organization. "The Employee Loyalty Index is an extremely innovative and successful program that highlights all of the great work Dennis and his team are doing at FedEx Express."

The ELI has proven to be an effective tool in measuring employee loyalty, and the ongoing program aims to build deeper and more productive customer relationships, to encourage employee retention, to reduce customer churn and to increase financial returns.

The program is one of several reasons why FedEx Express was selected to receive i4cp's Productivity Pioneer Award. Its innovative use of human capital to drive business results embraces the concept of high-performance organizations.

Are You Wasting Time and Money on the Wrong Retention Strategies?

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:28:00 GMT

Here's a late-breaking bulletin: employees leave their jobs because they're dissatisfied with their compensation. Are you shocked? We weren't either. But when results of i4cp's latest survey on Retention Strategy and Execution confirmed the top reason workers bail, we decided to take a closer look. Mean responses from all participants found non-work-related events/issues (spouse relocation, health, etc.) in second place, with poor work/life balance ranking third among departure drivers across all company sizes and industries.

Because i4cp's mission is to empower organizations to become high performers, we dissect our research results with great care, digging deep to find the strategies and behaviors that separate top firms from the also-rans. And we do this across the five domains that influence organizational performance: strategy, leadership, talent, culture and market. This recent survey points out that key retention questions for leaders within the talent domain are these: Do people leave high-performing and lower-performing organizations for different reasons? Do companies wait until it's too late to ask why workers abandon ship? Are companies' retention strategies accurately targeting the turnover drivers at work in their particular situations?

When it comes to the number-one turnover motivator in high-performing firms, our results revealed that unhappiness with compensation also was the primary culprit. However, respondents indicated that workers depart lower-performing companies because they have poor relationships with their managers: Two very different situations requiring diverse interventions.

If you regularly use i4cp research, you know that we look to our members and other top firms for real-world strategies that enable leaders to act on the issues that challenge their organizations. In the case of retention, we learned that both high market performers and their lower-performing counterparts list learning opportunities as their top strategy for retaining talent. Base salary increases and training in retention skills for managers - strategies that seem more likely to address the turnover drivers we identified - ranked much lower in respondents' arsenals. Does that mean that companies are investing in the activities that are most likely to help them effectively improve retention? Maybe not. The struggling economy has helped keep turnover levels down ... for now. But business leaders can't afford to let retention slip off the radar. Or to invest tight budget dollars unwisely.

Perhaps the best advice on retention strategies comes from the employee resources director of a leading high-tech firm that participated in the i4cp study. He points out that it doesn't cost a lot to "maintain vigilance and awareness," adding that "time and attention should be a day-in and day-out management responsibility." Yet the majority of respondents confirmed that exit interviews are their tool of choice for identifying issues that drive turnover. This is a decidedly late and re-active approach. Moreover, fewer than 20% say they act on the information they discover about the causes of turnover.

Clearly, identifying not only the factors that cause employees to grow dissatisfied and leave but also the elements of a workplace that engage and retain talent provides the kind of accurate information companies need to pro-actively address the real issues that shape their workplaces. Internal surveys provide an ideal means of assessing such issues. Indeed, pinpointing such critical insights, a large utility firm told us, will enable their organization to "come up with an action plan to increase/improve retention and help in our goal of being a great place to work."

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Build a better understanding of retention, engagement and other crucial, rapidly changing talent issues affecting today's organizations. i4cp members will find a wide range of strategic resources and relevant survey results by accessing the Talent Domain section of the website.
Leverage the power of opinion-sampling tools to gain a true picture of the elements that influence your workforce. i4cp, for example, partners with companies to conduct customized climate surveys designed to reveal the factors affecting employees' work experiences before valuable talent is ready to walk out the door.
Ensure that the strategies your organization chooses to support retention are in alignment with the realities of your workplace. If employees tell you that they're leaving because their compensation isn't satisfactory, it may not be realistic to expect that offering more training opportunities for workers will solve the problem.
When employees provide insights into the reasons they leave, use that information. Taking the time to find out what issues exist and then failing to take action to remedy problems is counterproductive. It wastes the time and money spent to survey or interview employees. Worse, it tells workers you don't care. Soon, they'll simply stop providing feedback altogether. Seize your opportunities to be proactive.

20 Years and Counting: Leadership Development Once Again the Most Critical Issue Facing Organizations in 2010

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:02:14 GMT

At a time when leadership and talent management are more critical than ever, few organizations excel in these areas, according to a new study from i4cp.

Findings from the study, now available on the i4cp website (corporate membership required), provide insight into the most critical issues organizations are facing in 2010 within the five domains of high performance. Specifically, the study examines the issues high-performance organizations believe are important, but don't feel they're particularly effective at. The gap between importance and effectiveness provides a ready-made roadmap of issues organizations need to immediately prioritize as targets for improvement.

For the 20 years i4cp has been conducting the study, leadership development has always been a top issue. In the 2010 iteration, however, leadership development has increased in prominence, with a surprising 75% of organizations citing it as an important issue. However, even more startling is that only 23% said they were effective at developing leaders internally - a gap of over 50%. Coupled with findings from another i4cp study, which found that only 14.3% of high-performance organizations have a process for identifying gaps in leadership development, it's clear that companies are struggling to grow their future leaders. Further, recent research has shown that many are now questioning whether the leadership competencies being stressed today are those that will be necessary in the future.

"Finding and developing the right leaders has been considered a top challenge for companies for decades. Our research shows that not only are companies continuing to struggle with finding solutions, but that the problem is actually getting worse," said Jay Jamrog, SVP of Research at i4cp. "Given the volatility of the last year and the accelerated pace of change in the economy, companies should be treating leadership development as both an urgent survival tactic and a business opportunity. The companies that get it right - and several high-performing companies are doing it right already - have potential for great success."

Among the many issues and gaps uncovered in the study, talent management, performance management and innovation stood out as areas where the gap between importance and effectiveness was particularly wide. For example:

Only a quarter (25%) of our study's respondents said leadership was effective at managing change, yet 74% said change management was important.
Fully 76% of respondents said performance management is very important this year, but a meager 30% said their companies are very effective at actually doing it.
Strategy execution and alignment was another area of concern. Though 79% of respondents said aligning the workforce to business strategy was important, only 33% said they were effective at doing so.

The Major Issues surveywas conducted by i4cp in December 2009. The full results of the survey are available exclusively for i4cp corporate members.

Ten Critical Performance Issues for 2010

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:52:00 GMT

Are we really three weeks into the new year already? Time flies when you've got too many things to do and not enough time to do them. That's why both organizations and individuals need to prioritize. Not only can setting priorities make organizations less frenzied, they can make them more effective - assuming, of course, they're focusing on the issues that really improve performance.

Last week, our CEO Kevin Oakes wrote about the five domains of high performance. This week, we're going to break things down to highlight some of the most critical subcomponents of each domain, based on i4cp's new study of the major issues of 2010.

We asked study participants to look ahead and identify the issues that would be most important to their organizations in the coming year. We also asked them to rate their organizations' effectiveness in addressing those issues. Why? Because being highly important doesn't mean something is critical. It's critical only if two things are true: it's important AND the organization is not effective enough in managing it.

Think about it this way. It's a hot day and you're stranded on a boat where there's plenty of drinkable water but no shade. Both water and shade are important, of course, but which is most critical? In that moment, it's the shade. You've already got water. What you need to figure out is a way to protect yourself from the blazing sun. That's your priority.

The same is true in management, and our study helped us pick out the most critical organizational performance issues in each of the five high-performance domains: leadership, talent, strategy, market focus and culture.

Jay Jamrog, i4cp's Senior VP of Research, has been conducting interviews on the findings of this study with our member companies. He notes that, in these conversations, there's a difference from previous years when we've run iterations of this survey. "There's a heightened sense of focus," he says. "I think the recession had a major impact. The people I'm speaking with are taking these issues much more seriously. They know that executing on their most critical issues will give them a competitive advantage that they really need to succeed, but failing on these issues could be a fatal misstep."

Develop better, more agile leadership

Let's start with leadership. It turns out that the two most important issues in this area are managing change and leadership development. But are they the most critical? As it happens, the answer is yes. Whereas about three quarters of respondents rates these two issues as important to a high or very high extent, only about a quarter said their organizations were effective in these areas to that same extent.

So, these are critically important issues for which few companies have excellent management responses. We'll save the whys and the wherefores for a future TrendWatcher. For now, however, let's just say that in 2010, companies will have their hands full trying to develop exceptional leaders who can help their firms deal with change. Such folks are in scarce supply. If you'd like to answer some questions - and get an early preview of responses, as we reward survey takers with preliminary results - that examine both of these issues, please check out our new survey on Organizational and Leadership Agility from Bill Joiner, Ed.D., coauthor of the book Leadership Agility.

Improve talent management and increase performance

Talent management is both an important AND a critical issue for 2010. This has been corroborated by two other major i4cp studies in the last three years. Relatively few organizations think they manage talent well, and we have plenty of data to show why. For one thing, most talent management systems are not very well integrated. The parts of the system often don't fit together well, like machines cobbled together from spare parts. For another thing, one of the vital components of talent management - performance management - is itself a critical issue. Fully 76% of our study's respondents said performance management is very important this year, but a meager 30% said their companies are very effective at actually doing it.

Bottom line: This year, organizations have their work cut out for them when it comes to making sure their talented folks are working up to their performance potential.

Focus on strategy execution

It isn't enough to formulate great plans. You've got to execute on them, and that requires getting everyone on the same page. Sounds easy, but most managers know it's tough to do well. Four out of five respondents said strategy execution and alignment are important, but less than a third said their firms are very effective at it. That's disturbing, and companies need to get a lot better in 2010 if they want to prosper.

Another critical concern is that less than a quarter of respondents think their firms are good at knowledge retention. If the economy truly recovers in 2010, they'd better buckle their seatbelts because lots of employees that have been constrained by a lousy job market in recent years will be keeping an eye out for new opportunities. Employers don't necessarily have to retain all of their talent, but they at least need to retain a good chunk of their expertise via cross-training, knowledge-management systems, etc. Otherwise, a lot of that intangible capital could, quite tangibly, walk out the door.

Emphasize innovation

Next, let's look at market issues. As we expected, based on our long history of research in these areas, the most important issue in this domain was customer focus. This is a perennial favorite and one of the top four most important issues for the last 20 years. What's interesting, however, is that it's not among the top two most critical issues in this domain today. That's because, although highly important, many companies actually think they're already pretty effective in this area.

Where they're not so effective, however, is in the area of creativity and innovation. Although 72% of study participants said the issue is important to a high or very high extent, just a third said their organizations were very effective in this area. We also found that innovation is the number one most critical issue among all domains for large, high-performing companies. Therefore, even some of the paragon companies in the world view innovation as their single most critical issue, and even companies that are viewed as innovative continue to focus resources in this area in order to maintain their edge.

There are two other critical issues in this domain that our index shows are in a statistical dead heat: emerging markets and sustainability. Not every company thinks emerging markets are important, but there's a clear lack of effectiveness in this up-and-coming global issue. 2010 will be a time to think hard about how to go global. Meanwhile, a surprisingly high percentage of organizations consider sustainability to be highly important, but, as with emerging markets, they don't feel they've got a good grip on the issue yet.

Get some culture in 2010

We're only going to mention one issue in the culture domain because it's so all-encompassing: that is, managing corporate culture. Just 27% of participants said their companies are effective at managing culture to a high or very high extent. But, as a recent report that i4cp partnered on with the American Management Association shows, there are, in fact, various levers organizations can pull to create higher-performance corporate cultures.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Combine your efforts in the areas of leadership development and managing change if these are both critical issues in your company. That is, gauge how agile your leaders are and then take steps to improve change-management skills where warranted.
Assess where the barriers to innovation are in your company to make it more innovation-friendly in 2010. For more on this subject, see The Quest for Innovation: A Global Study of Innovation Management.
Work at integrating and aligning the various components of talent management in 2010, with a special focus on performance management. For example, employees are often cynical about performance management, and i4cp research has found that one of the nine keys to success in this area is to ensure that appraisal information has some objective components and isn't strictly limited to the judgment of supervisors.
Create a culture that makes it easier to implement new strategies. That is, the culture needs to be change-friendly, performance-driven and not entangled by conflicting subcultures that compete against one another and slow down strategy execution.

New i4cp Study: The Five Domains of High-Performance Organizations

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:18:00 GMT

After conducting thousands of studies that cover hundreds of issues related to productivity and the workforce, one thing is clear: there is no single organizational element that is correlated with high performance. Rather, there are five.

For decades, the research team at the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) has studied what separates high-performing organizations from their lower-performing counterparts. The results of that research have consistently shown that companies that excel in the following five domains are typically high performers:

Strategy
Leadership
Talent
Culture
Market

In December, i4cp set out to clarify the differences between high-performing and low-performing organizations across these domains, and to determine whether certain issues or traits have increased in importance in the current economic climate. The results were interesting, if not startling. The gap between higher-performing and lower-performing organizations has widened considerably from previous studies. Based on a scale from 1 to 7, high-performance organizations scored an average of 6.03 across these domains, compared with 2.88 for low performers.

Download a white paper on the five domains of high-performance organizations, or read on for more information.

"High-performance organizations all seem to recognize that, while excelling in these five areas is critical, these domains need to work together as an integrated system," said Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. "The culture should be focused on the customer and reflective of the organization's talent, which in turn feeds off the leadership, who need to be aligned with the strategy, etc. If one domain is ignored or inefficient, the system breaks down. This five-domain system also contains many important sub-domains - our members would recognize them as knowledge centers -that are just as critical to explore."

Specifically the new study found the following in each domain:

1. Strategy

High-performance organizations outscored low performers by 6.14 compared with 2.58 in the critical area of Strategy. In looking at specific areas of strength vs. weakness, it's clear that an organization's strategic approach is vitally important to high performance. The common wisdom of "walk the talk" is an indispensable ingredient in high-performance organizations. If an executive says one thing and then does another, employees draw a variety of conclusions, most of them destructive to the organization.

Executives in high-performance organizations avoid these problems by ensuring that employees are clear about the strategic plan and the company's approach to business, and by ensuring that managers behave consistently. The study shows that the single most widely cited strategic practice among high-performance organizations was, "My organization's philosophy statement is consistent with its strategy." And the strategic practice in which high performers outstrip low performers the most is "Organization-wide performance measures match the organization's strategy," followed by "Organization's strategic plan is clear and well thought out."

2. Leadership

In Leadership, the gap between high-performance and low-performance organizations was 5.96 compared with 2.47. The study found that one of the most widely agreed-on leadership-related strategies is ensuring that "Everyone is clear about the organization's performance expectations." Another important factor associated with high performance is "Making sure employees believe that their behavior affects the organization." Leaders can't do their jobs alone. They must be able to convince others of just how important their own behaviors are to the success of the whole organization.

A third factor that was strongly associated with performance was the idea that "Management promotes the person who has the best skills and knowledge to do the job." Performance tends to be higher in organizations where promotions are based on talent and merit rather than on other factors, such as organizational politics.

3. Talent

With high-performance organizations scoring 5.82 in Talent, compared with 2.73 for low performers, the gap between the two is certainly wide. High-performance organizations know that effective Talent Management moves beyond a focus on HR practices, processes and systems, to a strategic approach that is linked to business outcomes. This begins with stepping outside of HR and looking at the organization from an outside-in perspective. This entails identifying the business model components and areas that drive value, and determining what the organization needs. It enables organizations to take a holistic approach to treating employees as individuals, while managing and making decisions based on data-driven information, all of which benefit the organization as a whole.

4. Culture

The difference between high and low performers in the all-important Culture category is 5.99 compared with 2.94. Being seen as a "good place to work" is a solid indicator that an organization is a high performer in this domain. Not only is this characteristic the most widely cited by high-performance organizations, it's also the biggest differentiator from low performers. High-performance organizations are also well aware of external factors - such as customers, markets and competitors - and they are ready to take on new challenges. Another element of culture that's relatively strongly correlated with high performance is a commitment to innovation and internal fostering of creativity.

5. Market

High-performance organizations scored very high in market or customer focus (6.23) vs. lower performers (3.69). The research shows that high performance is associated with a strong emphasis on customer service, including vigorous efforts to serve customers better than anyone else in the industry. High performance is linked with the use of "Customer information as the most important factor related to developing new products and services." High-performance companies are usually organized internally around what's best for the customer, and their strategy is based on customer data.

"The study reaffirms i4cp's focus on its 44 ongoing research projects, and our discoveries to date on high-performance organizations," Oakes commented. "Throughout 2010, i4cp will be launching new iterations of its most important studies - on such topics as leadership agility, customer-focused workforces and strategy execution and alignment - to see which tactics, strategies and practices high-performance organizations are using in this economic climate."

The High-Performance Organization Survey was conducted by i4cp in December 2009. The full results of the survey are available exclusively to i4cp corporate members.

The Five Domains of High Performance

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:13:00 GMT

Pick a leader - any successful leader. Then search Amazon and see how many books and other publications come up on that person. Abraham Lincoln? 83,642. Gandhi? 61,923. Even Barack Obama, who was widely introduced to the world just five years ago, has 8,670. People love studying successful people.

In the same way that many people have an insatiable appetite to study successful leaders, we in the business world tend to be fascinated with high-performance organizations. What are they like? What do they do differently? Is there a secret recipe that allows them to outperform their competition?

Of course, many books have been dedicated to this subject. From Tom Peters's and Bob Waterman's early 80's best seller In Search of Excellence to Jim Collins' Built to Last and Good to Great, there has been a succession of books that leaders and managers across the globe have devoured. Programs such as GE's Six Sigma have trained countless people in how to achieve top performance and consultants have built entire practices around elements of high-performing companies.

While business professionals want to learn more about high-performance organizations in the hopes that they can apply some of the secret sauce to their own organization, many of the companies profiled within the pages of the aforementioned books were unable to sustain high performance. In fact, the number is about half. While much has been written on the subject, the truth is that the ingredients to high performance remain something of a mystery.

Part of the reason is the definition - what exactly do we mean by high performance? Is there a difference between simply surviving (which was the fate of some of the companies profiled in Built to Last, for example) and performing well over a long period? Do we mean companies which outperform others in their own industry or across industries? Over how long a time period does an organization need to perform exceptionally well in order to be considered a "high performer"? And which measures, financial or otherwise, are the best ones to use?

Over the last three decades, i4cp researchers have looked at various ways to define high performance and the traits that separate the consistently top organizations from the rest. Through that time, we have come to recognize high-performing organizations as ones that consistently outperform most of their competitors in four primary areas:

Revenue growth
Market share
Profitability
Customer satisfaction

And, over the years, our research team has examined well over 100 different core human capital areas and tried to determine the differences between high-performing and low-performing organizations. The research has clearly shown that no single ingredient guarantees organizational success. Rather, high performance is like a delicate entrée - based on a staple of core ingredients any one of which, if left out or of inferior quality, will ruin the entire item.

The Five Domains of High Performance

Our research has shown that there are five basic ingredients which separate higher performers from their lower-performing counterparts:

Their strategies are more consistent, clearly communicated and well thought out. They are more likely than other companies to say that their philosophies are consistent with their strategies and their performance measurements mirror their strategies.
Leadership is clear, fair and talent-oriented. Those leaders are more likely to promote the best people for the job, to make sure performance expectations are well known and consistent with the strategy, and to be committed to developing their people.
There is a commitment to the right talent within the organization, and while employees are treated as unique individuals, the organization takes a holistic approach to managing and making decisions based on data-driven information. This begins with a strategic approach to workforce planning. It entails looking at the organization from an outside-in perspective that identifies the business model components and areas that drive value and then determines what the organization needs.
The culture is strong in all the right ways, and employees are more likely to think the organization is a good place to work. Employees not only adapt well to change, they embrace it. High performers also emphasize a readiness to meet new challenges and are committed to innovation.
They are more likely to have a strong market focus and go above and beyond for their customers. They are organized internally around what's best for the customer, they think hard about customers' future and long-term needs, and their strategy is based on customer data. And they are more likely to see customer information as the most important factor for developing new products and services.

While these five domains - Strategy, Leadership, Talent, Culture and Market - may seem a bit broad or even obvious, the separation our research has shown between high and low performers in these domains is startling. For example, in a just-released study on high performance by i4cp, the following graph depicts this separation:

These findings, along with previous studies, have convinced us to target our research on discovering the best ways for companies to boost their performance in these five domains and the numerous sub-domains within. We're convinced that companies that focus on excelling in these areas are cooking up a surefire recipe for long-term success.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Take stock to determine where your organization stands in these five areas, and be honest - even the best performing companies aren't always superb in each area. To get an objective view, survey the workforce on these domains as well as use other assessment tools.
Once you've determined your areas of strength and weakness, make sure senior management is involved in improving on the weak areas while not taking the eye off of the strengths; in tough economies it can be easy to stop focusing on core areas that the company has excelled in. Don't forget to investigate the practices of other organizations that are excelling in your areas of weakness; it's amazing how some very simple and inexpensive ideas can make a huge difference in closing the gap.
Although companies should focus on the specific tactics for boosting their performance in each of these five areas, it's important to align the five areas as a whole. Each domain feeds off the others, and ignoring one is like leaving a key ingredient out of a culinary masterpiece.
Although these efforts should continue indefinitely to sustain performance over time, organizations should also do regular reevaluations of their progress so they can make course corrections as needed.

View a recording of Thursday's webinar, The Five Domains of High-Performance Organizations.

The Five Domains of High-Performance Organizations

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:51:00 GMT

i4cp is hosting a complimentary webinar on Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 1pm EST titled, The Five Domains of High-Performance Organizations.

Innovative products and a compelling business strategy are essential, but both fall flat without the human capital that drives the organization. Yet, most companies don't look at the workforce with the same value, nor have the means to measure its success.

Over the past 40 years, i4cp has conducted hundreds of studies of the many elements that combine to form the foundations of top organizations. In doing so, i4cp has identified five core human capital areas - what we refer to as the "domains" of expertise - that high-performance organizations share.

In this webinar, Jay Jamrog, i4cp's SVP of Research, will explore the five human capital domains of high-performance organizations and reveal strategies and solutions to make improvements that drive business success. The webinar is designed for senior level executives.

Register now for this exclusive online event.

It's 2010. Where's My Jetpack?

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:43:00 GMT

As we leave the "aughts" (rhymes with "naughts") and enter the (what should we call this next decade, the "tens"? The "teens"?), it is clear that a large part of the population is disappointed. Not just because the last decade was the worst in history for stock market performance, but because the world has not innovated as we all imagined it would many moons ago.

A new Zogby/ScoopDaily poll reveals that nearly a third (32%) of Americans say they believed there would be greater technological advances by 2010. I'll admit I'm one of those optimists. I grew up watching the Jetsons fly around in jetpacks, the technology for which seemingly has been around my entire lifetime (watch "The Rocketeer" on cable sometime). I'm no closer to my jetpack today than I was when I used to watch cartoons in footy pajamas.

Beliefs on technological innovation are squarely generational. The poll shows that those aged 18-30 are much less likely (13%) than those in older generations to say the technological advancements up until now have exceeded their expectations. Those 70 and older (34%) are the group most likely to say we are more advanced than they thought we would be by 2010. Most disappointed? It's the 35- to 54-year-olds (36%, or the Jetson-watching generation), who are more likely to say they thought there would have been greater tech advances by 2010.

Many business professionals fit into that most-disappointed demographic, of course, and maybe this helps explain the findings of a new i4cp study, which we'll be publishing and presenting later this month. It inquired about the major issues companies will be facing in 2010, asking about both the importance of those issues and organizations' effectiveness in dealing with them. Although we'll save most of the findings for later, I can tell you that one of the items that intrigued us was "creativity and innovation." Out of 53 issues, it was ranked third in importanceoverall and, even more telling, was the single most critical issue among high market-performing companies with 10,000 or more employees. That is, despite their market success, such large organizations generally recognize that they've not yet mastered the all-important art of innovation, making it a crucial issue for 2010.

For such companies, any failures to innovate are more than just an emotional letdown over childhood fantasies; they're a sign that their bottom lines will be eroded in the near future. i4cp research shows that innovation is a key component to market performance, and it's one that is ultimately the responsibility of senior leaders. A previous study i4cp did on this subject summed it up quite well: "Executives at all levels have a responsibility to lead and stimulate innovative thinking across the entire enterprise. Stockholders, employees and customers count on executives to create a healthy, innovative work environment."

So, the crucial question becomes, "How do today's leaders continue to create that healthy, innovative work environment?"

More and more leaders are recognizing that the human capital function (that is, "HR") can play an important role in helping them create an innovative culture. Much can be learned from the example of i4cp-member company Qualcomm, which is one of the most successful startups in U.S. history. "The CEO can't be the only one responsible for innovation, particularly when a company has grown as rapidly as we have," said Tamar Elkeles, vice president of Qualcomm's Learning Center, at last year's i4cp Annual Member Conference. Giving an impassioned speech about how to keep an innovative culture alive and thriving, she stated, "We have focused many of our efforts on ‘intrapreneurship,' or, in other words, growing our own entrepreneurs internally and keeping them - and their ideas - at Qualcomm. It's safe to say we have seen significant business benefits from these initiatives."

Elkeles' presentation, titled "Fostering Intrapreneurship in Challenging Times," outlined several initiatives that she and her team have created or manage:

A yearlong email campaign as part of the new-employee onboarding experience - titled "52 Weeks" - which provides a weekly story to new employees about Qualcomm's innovative culture.
An annual employee trade show, which showcases projects, technologies and products across the organization and is designed to educate employees about innovations from different parts of the company. This is both a physical trade show on the San Diego campus and a virtual trade show for remote employees.
A technology forum, called "QTech," which provides a platform for engineers to share new ideas and technical projects with all of Qualcomm, particularly the senior R&D team. The QTech Forum is a multiday event showcasing 30 new ideas, out of approximately 100 submissions each year, which are presented live to employees around the globe.
The Qualcomm Innovation Network (QIN), which is a way to post new ideas, get feedback on them, and fund the best ones. Two rounds of judging involving senior executives eventually produce winning ideas, which get further developed within the company. To date over 1,800 ideas have been submitted on QIN, with dozens of internally funded "startups" created as a result.

So, despite the lack of jetpacks in 2010, business leaders should not be pessimistic. Emulating the likes of great companies such as Qualcomm, they can harness "intrapreneurship," partnering with human capital professionals and other workforce managers to create a healthy, innovative work environment. That's an effort that should at least make the CEO's spirits - if not yet the body - soar to new heights.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

The Talk. Leaders can emphasize the importance of innovation by maintaining regular employee communication and by taking part in visible internal initiatives such as employee trade shows and idea programs. Internal communication specialists can play a big role here. Leaders can also promote feedback that comes from outside the company, such as customer input or the results of new product trials.
The Walk. Leaders can demonstrate their commitment to new ideas by setting a clear course for innovation and facilitating and rewarding idea generation through internal programs. The human capital function can create and spearhead these efforts. Without visible evidence from the top that employee innovation is, in fact, critical to business results and embraced internally, workers are unlikely to reach that conclusion on their own and are likely to take their good ideas elsewhere.
The Work. Leaders must acknowledge employees' need for challenging work by assigning tasks that fit well with their skills and their individual preferences. Leaders must also encourage employees to question how things are done and not punish people for making mistakes. Forced time away from their regular job to focus on new ideas sends a clear signal about what is important.
The Perks. Rewarding ideas developed internally, both in recognition and monetarily, also sends a clear signal about what is valued in the company. Intrapreneurship shouldn't be an exception - it should be adopted as a cultural norm if a company wants to grow and innovate at the same time.

P.S. If you want more innovative ideas for your company, members are invited to hear thought-provoking presentations such as Dr. Elkeles' at our Annual Membership Conference, which is less than a month away. Please join us! It's looking as though we will have a record turnout this year. If you can't make it, Tamar and I will be giving additional presentations on innovation this year at various conferences, such as the Training 2010 Conference & Expo.

Driving Retention and Productivity through Employee Onboarding - PNC Financial Services

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:46:00 GMT

i4cp will be hosting a member-only webinar on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 1pm EST titled, Driving Retention and Productivity through Employee Onboarding - PNC Financial Services.

The onboarding process plays a pivotal role in accelerating the speed and degree that employees - from entry-level candidates to executives - can make a positive impact on the organization. Research has found that effective employee onboarding increases retention, engagement and productivity. PNC Financial Services, an i4cp member company, takes a very strategic approach to the onboarding process for those very reasons.

In this member-only webinar, Jaime Elving, Assistant Vice President and Project Manager for Executive Recruiting and Onboarding at PNC Financial Services, will show why the company has put an emphasis on enhancing onboarding and will reveal solutions that PNC has implemented to address challenges that other companies have faced. Key topics covered in this webinar will include:

An overview of what onboarding means at PNC
The process by which PNC collects and encourages feedback on an ongoing basis, and how it measures success
The communications and tools that PNC makes available for hiring managers and new employees
How PNC has tailored the onboarding experience based on business, geography, level of hire and type of hire
The impact of mergers and acquisitions/integrations on onboarding plans at PNC

About the presenter

Jaime is responsible for the management and support of programs designed to enhance the acquisition, transfer, acclimation, retention and growth of PNC executives and new hires across the organization. She also serves as Project Manager for talent management aspects of PNC's integration with National City. Jaime has a Masters of Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

If you're company isn't a member but you would like to attend the webinar, please contact us to discuss your options.

i4cp Sees Record Membership Growth in 2009

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Company experiences over 120% growth in new membership last year

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the world's largest vendor-free network of corporations focused on building and sustaining a highly productive, high-performance organization, experienced record growth in new memberships during the last quarter and 2009 calendar year. Multiple well known brand-name organizations joined i4cp to access and contribute to its highly acclaimed research and peer community. In the last quarter alone, organizations such as GE, MetLife, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Petco, Ameriprise, Boston Scientific, the U.S. Navy and multiple other companies and nonprofits joined i4cp's growing network.

"With various choices in the marketplace, i4cp's unique offering of research on what separates high- performance organizations from the rest, coupled with peer connections, tools and technologies made joining an easy decision," said Sadie Stern, Director of Human Resources at LG Electronics MobileComm. "We look forward to working with i4cp in the coming year to help us with our strategic human capital initiatives."

"In this fiscally constrained environment, selecting the right partner is more critical than ever," commented Wayne Wagner, HR Strategist with the United States Department of the Navy. "i4cp not only provides great value but focuses on what's most important in today's economy - the core areas that define high performance. That's a combination that's hard to beat."

"Over the past several decades, i4cp has conducted hundreds of studies detailing the many elements that combine to form the foundations of top organizations," said Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. "In doing so, we have identified five core human capital areas - what we refer to as domains of expertise - that high-performance organizations share. As a result, we've focused our research and offerings around these domains and continue to explore what separates the high performers from the also-rans. It's an exciting focus for us, and we are thrilled so many well known and respected organizations have joined our network to access and contribute to this body of work."

In the last year alone, i4cp conducted over 40 in-depth research projects on behalf of its members, several of which were featured in global publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Some of the more notable studies:

The Components of High-Performance Organizations
Generations in the Workplace
Successful Pay-for-Performance Practices
Social Networking in the Workplace
Corporate Culture and Successful M&As
Talent Management & Leadership Competencies of the Future
Turnover and Engagement Strategies and Practices
Succession Planning
Strategic Workforce Planning

During the year, i4cp also rolled out several new tools and technologies to augment its renowned research. One of the more popular tools is i4cp's new Interactive Data functionality, which allows members complete and unprecedented access to the underlying research data for almost any human capital study conducted. Interactive Data gives member companies the ability to directly filter and benchmark their organization against high- and low-performing organizations, specific industries, company sizes, job levels and more. This functionality allows member companies to customize the research i4cp conducts in real time to the specifications that are of interest to that organization.

"Opening up our research data is something we feel provides unique value to our members," said CEO Kevin Oakes. "Most other research organizations keep the data they collect close to the vest, and you typically have to trust their interpretation of it. In our private, no-vendor, no-consultant network, we aren't as burdened as other organizations are with the data we collect."

In 2009, i4cp also increased its activity in administering employee engagement/climate surveys within member companies to help organizations understand where they might have pockets of strategic misalignment while understanding the engagement levels of the workforce. In conjunction with i4cp's research into what high-performance organizations do to keep their workforces engaged and aligned, i4cp's employee engagement surveys provide unique value without the add-on fees consultancies often charge.

"In 2010, we have many exciting member-driven and i4cp-driven research studies on our calendar," said Jay Jamrog, SVP of Research at i4cp. "As we further our work in high performance, our member companies will play a pivotal role in helping refine and influence the areas of research our analysts will target. Because of the groundbreaking work our research team is part of, I'm looking forward to another year of significant growth at i4cp."

For more information on the benefits of membership and how to join i4cp, please go to http://www.i4cp.com/solutions/.

Thou Shalt Not Poach Competitors' Talent ... or Maybe Thou Shalt!

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:20:00 GMT

Are corporate recruiters re-inventing the rules that govern their work when it comes to sourcing talent? Internal recruiting functions may be headed in that direction, suggest results of i4cp's new study on competitive recruiting practices. The figures show some companies are putting aggressive sourcing methods to work.

Traditionally, internal corporate recruiters have abided by what used to be called a "gentlemen's agreement." Actively seeking to poach top talent from competitors just wasn't done. At least it wasn't done overtly or regularly in most industries. But respondents to our study might be signaling the arrival of a new day in the quest for the best candidates and a new stage in the war for talent.

Such aggressive approaches could be the result of mediocre success among many internal recruiters. Our study shows that the largest percentage of respondents (53%) rated their firms only about average in recruitment effectiveness. A third claimed better-than-average results, but just 5% called their recruiting effectiveness "excellent."

Respondents who rely on their own internal recruiting functions to source talent agree that applying the kinds of assertive techniques that external search firms, or headhunters, sometimes use could help them improve their results. Nearly three-quarters say that, to a high or very high extent, headhunting methods increase recruitment effectiveness in certain areas. Almost as many respondents credit the techniques with helping target strategic talent. Other potential benefits include cost savings, faster recruiting results and even the ability to "send a signal" to competitors.

Doing what the headhunters do

One in four study respondents said that, to a high or very high extent, they advertise in local markets or regions of competitors. Also to a high or very high extent, 20% acknowledge that they actively source competitors' employees in key and/or skilled positions, and 10% say they contact competitors' employees directly.

Some organizations say that direct contact of competitors' staff is their means of seeking out passive candidates - individuals currently employed but who might be open to a job switch if an offer came their way. Jaime Elving, Project Manager of Executive Recruiting & Onboarding for i4cp member company PNC Financial Services, confirms her organization's use of personal contacts with employees of other firms. "Passive candidates are some of the people we're most interested in talking with," she says. "Even if the person our recruiters speak with isn't an actual candidate, he or she may be able to give us names of colleagues or friends who are interested." PNC also advertises extensively in local markets, achieving the dual goals of reinforcing its employment brand while also communicating its business brand.

Cindy Akins, Vice President of Human Resources for marketing research firm Millward Brown, observes that the economic downturn has made some employees particularly amenable to contact from competitors. "Companies have downsized, but they've held onto their best people. However, I think there's a feeling that those employees aren't necessarily that happy. So if you can reach in and get a couple of good people from your competitor, the industry knowledge is already there, and you may be getting someone who has client relationships and other attractive attributes. I think the feeling of dissatisfaction that a lot of employees have right now makes them more inclined to jump if they're contacted." She adds that "unfortunately that happens with our employees as well. We haven't lost many people, but we're worried about the situation in 2010." In fact, another recent i4cp study found many employers are already taking action to prevent increases in employee departures as the economy gains traction.

Things may get even more aggressive in the future as the economy turns around. "We plan to use these techniques much more," said 16% of respondents to i4cp's study. Twenty percent said they intend trying the approach either for limited regions or positions. Another 22% said they were discussing it, while 20% said they didn't know. That left fewer than a quarter of participants denying they'd use headhunting methods more in the future.

Some respondents express reservations about assertive recruiting tactics, fearing that they might trigger a bidding war for talent or incite competitors to "drop the gloves" and target their talent. Few expressed concern about the use of such techniques being seen as "bad form" for internal recruiters, although our research suggests that in Europe - at least in Germany - the question of ethics keeps some firms from taking action. The former head of recruitment for the Europe/Middle East/Africa region of a major business software firm noted that the "gentlemen's agreement" sensibility is still strong there. "We don't do outreach to our competitors' employees," he says, "but we do accept applications from them."

Making the most of methods used

While the study primarily concerned itself with the activities of internal recruitment functions, it also asked about external search firms and the use of social media for applicant sourcing. About two-thirds of respondents said they used outside recruiters "once in a while for certain key positions." Most often, companies turned to headhunters for help finding talent to fill senior leadership positions. And larger companies were more likely to take that route than were smaller firms. Gruppo Campari, a leader in the branded beverage industry, uses headhunters to help locate talent for specific roles across their Italian operations. "Usually high-level management or other specialized positions," explains Valérie Nizard, HR Global Product Supply Chain & Group Functions, who coordinates outside search-firm usage. She ensures optimal results for Gruppo Campari by performing a quick analysis when a requisition is made. "We do a quick assessment of a number of things," Nizard says. "Obviously, how much it would cost to use an outside firm, but also how easy we think it's going to be to fill it by doing the search ourselves. Based on that assessment, we decide which method will be preferable."

Relatively few companies say they're using social media to a large extent for recruiting purposes. But, among those that do, LinkedIn seems to be a tool of choice. "Once we've found people on LinkedIn who seem to be viable prospects, we contact them," says Millward Brown's Akins. "That enables us to avoid time-consuming cold calling." Although her company doesn't actively contact competitors' people, Gruppo Campari's Nizard says that her recruiters do call "when we want to seek applicants from another industry - the fast-moving consumer goods field, for example. In that case, we will check profiles on LinkedIn. If we find someone we're interested in, we will contact them directly to see if they're interested in pursuing anything further."

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Carefully weigh the benefits of using your internal recruiting function versus seeking talent through external search firms when vacancies arise. Gruppo Campari's use of a quick assessment to weigh costs and benefits drives strong decision-making about recruitment.
Consider using multiple methods of sourcing candidates in order to meet varied talent needs in your organization. "For a few select and very hard to find roles, we might still contact an outside firm," says Jaime Elving of PNC, "though as much as possible, we're relying on our own efforts now."
Evaluate social media, such as LinkedIn, as a support tool for more assertive types of outreach. Companies can look for likely candidates in such venues before they reach out, increasing their likelihood of finding candidates who not only possess the qualifications desired but who also are apt to fit well and succeed within the organizational culture.
Don't forget to measure your results, and make adjustments to your recruiting programs if needed. Go beyond metrics that simply reflect recruiting activity and look at the quality of the hires you're making. Are people fitting in? Becoming engaged, high-performers? Are they staying? If your answers are "yes," chances are that you're making good calls when it comes to your recruitment outreach.

Few Companies Have Employee Retention Strategies for an Economic Uptick

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:49:43 GMT

While nearly half admit the economic downturn has slowed the drain of employees, that doesn't mean companies are effectively addressing ways to retain workers when the situation improves, according to the latest study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). The findings for our Retention Strategy and Execution Pulse Survey are now available to members.

According to the study findings, which are now available to i4cp's corporate members, 47% of polled organizations said the current economic doldrums have had a "somewhat" or "significant" positive effect on employee retention. However, when asked what will happen when the economy rebounds, less than half (46%) of companies said they are concerned about retention to a "high" or "very high" extent.

When it comes to trying to keep employees on board when the economy upticks, just 20% of organizations reported they have increased their retention efforts. However, among higher-performing companies, 27% said retention efforts have increased, compared to 17% of lower performers.

Regarding a budget for retention efforts, 23% of companies overall admit they don't have one, while 43% say their budgets have remained about the same. Twenty percent of higher performers said they don't have a retention budget, while 25% of lower performers admitted they do not have one.

In addition, when employees do leave, the study suggested that many companies may be missing the "why" retention boat. For instance, 68% of companies overall conduct face-to-face exit interviews to learn what led employees to leave the organization, but only 17% take action to address those issues from a "high" to "very high" extent. Among higher performers, 65% conduct exit interviews and 20% take action, while lower performers do so at 77% and 16%, respectively.

"It seems that many companies may be dropping the ball when it comes to retention issues," said i4cp senior research analyst Carol Morrison. "They've identified retention as a concern, but they're not willing to fund programs for it. And, they are losing out on opportunities to find out why employees are leaving. Clearly, more attention to retention issues is going to be needed as the economy improves and turnover inevitably increases."

Of those organizations which have a plan in place, 44% of respondents said they don't regularly review their retention strategies and programs. In higher-performing organizations, that number drops to 32%, while 51% of lower performers said they do not review the strategies/programs.

So, how effective are organizational efforts to retain talent? Overall, 48% of companies believe their efforts are "somewhat" or "highly" effective. The employee segments are headed up by senior managers, 56% from a "high" to "very high" extent, followed by employees in critical roles (41%) and high performers, also at 41 %. In general, 62% of responding companies said they have made an effort to identify specific talent to retain, and HR was cited by 30% has having primary responsibility for that task.

Download the Retention Strategy and Execution findings now.

Does Your HR Scorecard Help Your Organization Win?

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:56:00 GMT

The calendar has already turned to December and with it the promise of a new year. While in our personal lives a new year usually signals "New Year's Resolutions," our organizations practice another ritual: assessing the current year's accomplishments and setting goals for the coming year.

Although most Americans will abandon their personal resolutions before February 1st, organizations will toil, gnash teeth and soldier on to fulfill their "resolutions" because rewards are often tied to the results.

This helps explain why over the last two months there has been an uptick in two related trends: More i4cp member organizations have been seeking advice on how to best implement new reporting tools or how to maximize the value they get from existing tools. By "reporting tools," I'm referring to scorecards, dashboards, analytics reports and the like. Through assisting these members and from my own corporate experience, I have discovered some common stumbling blocks.

Stumbling Block One: Firms try to solve too many problems with a single tool

You've probably heard this one: "What is a platypus? It's a duck built by committee." Too often, reporting tools are also built by committee, resulting in instruments that lack focus and ease of use. Sometimes they're far too long. In fact, most are pages too long; one I saw was over 50 pages produced monthly!

Of course, the intentions of the committees are good. They want to ensure that there's a single place for managers to find the required data. But this causes other problems, including complexity and a confusion of information. In my experience, a typical HR-related reporting tool contains five distinct but interrelated types of data:

Employee-activity measures, such as termination or promotion rates.
Workforce demographic data, such as diversity representation.
HR functional metrics, such as the ratio of HR staff members to employees.
HR process metrics, such as "time to fill."
Qualitative metrics, such as employee engagement findings.

When a single tool has all of these different types of data rolled up into one place, it becomes confusing at best and, at worst, is disregarded by management as useless. I recommend that organizations use more reporting tools but ensure that each has a specific focus and purpose.

Stumbling Block Two: Firms can't measure what they want to, so they measure what they have

I sometimes say to people, "Tell me about this metric - how is it used?" Below are some common responses:

We really want to know X, but we don't have the data. But we can measure this tangentially related metric.
We use it because a specific stakeholder wants to see this measurement.
I'm not sure how it's used. We have always measured it this way.

Organizations should have good reasons for measuring and reporting what they do. Otherwise, they're wasting valuable time collecting low-impact information and they're diluting high-impact information.

Stumbling Block Three: Firms don't always know what kind of tool they need

I've used the term "reporting tool" to describe a range of different types of tools. These names for these tools are too often used interchangeably. This creates the kind of terminology confusion that drives organizations to create just one tool in an attempt to keep it simple. My experience is that it helps to clearly define and distinguish among terms such as "data," "metrics," "HR analytics," "scorecards," "dashboards," and the like. I'll be going into greater detail about these and other tools in an upcoming members-only webinar, but for now let's focus on scorecards and dashboards, two terms that are often confused.

Scorecards are management tools to measure performance, much like a baseball game scorecard. They typically use metrics from different functions to evaluate organization or work processes. They require a target or an objective standard against which scores can be measured. I think high-quality scorecards are limited to 3-7 measurements. The measurements are defined in the scorecard and state the purpose of the instrument.

A dashboard, on the other hand, is more like the speedometer and other gauges in your automobile. Dashboards are typically a source of business intelligence. A dashboard allows the firm to monitor trends and risks, and it may include "thresholds" for acceptable results. It should be limited to 8-12 measurements.

So, what's the major difference between scorecards and dashboards? If the scorecard goal is 10 and you have "scored" 15, you know you are "winning" - at least in regard to that measurement. On the other hand, if you are driving in your car and going 50 mph, is that good or bad? Dashboards have measures that, taken in context, tell a story but on their own are not immediately actionable.

I've found that these kinds of focused tools can be invaluable for helping organizations gauge and then improve their performance levels. As strange as it sounds, when you feel like the organization has become an insatiable data beast, this is a sign that you are on the path to success with your reporting tools!

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Conduct an assessment of your reporting tools. Is the purpose of all your tools clear? How effective is any given tool in terms of achieving its purpose?
Solicit feedback from the intended beneficiaries of the reporting tool via interviews or focus groups to ensure their needs are being addressed. Document their needs, concerns and hypotheses and review them on a regular basis (at least once a year).
Determine if your reporting tool is in sync with the tools of other organizational functions such as finance and marketing. Rather than compete with other staff functions for management's time and attention, partner to improve their reports by including employee-related data.
Identify a central coordinator for reporting tools. This resource should not be responsible for producing all of the reports but should be tasked with understanding the reports and implications, aggregating information, reviewing reports for consistency and distributing needed information.

Need Talent? 25% of Companies Are Contacting Competitor Employees Directly

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:25:00 GMT

The recession may have weakened the war for talent, but the battles have intensified. In the latest member-driven study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), which looked at competitive recruiting practices among organizations, a quarter of companies said they recruit new talent by contacting their competitors' employees directly. Over 40% say they actively source competitors' employees in certain positions to a moderate or higher extent.

The study, the results of which are now available exclusively to i4cp members (download the results now), also revealed that, when searching for talent, 67% of respondents' organizations utilize recruiting firms to fill positions. Not surprisingly, large companies (10,000 employees or more) are more likely to use an external firm (79%) than firms with 1,000 workers or fewer, which reported they do so 58% of the time.

Though a majority of organizations use external recruiting firms, a third of respondents said that using headhunter techniques are seen as "bad form" for internal recruiters, and a quarter stated that they damage a company's brand.

Mostly, companies polled use external searches selectively. Overall, 58% said they use headhunters to fill certain key positions. In high-performance organizations - firms that consistently outperform their competitors in market share, revenue growth, profitability and customer satisfaction - 63% use external firms for filling key positions, compared to 54% of lower performers. Overall, only 15% said they use the option "fairly often" for a minority of jobs in the organization.

"These study results speak to the fact that many organizations are concerned not just with finding talent, but with finding the right talent," observed i4cp senior research analyst Carol Morrison. "Developing current employees for advancement is an excellent strategy, but recognizing that there are times when a company can benefit from hiring externally and adding fresh perspective is a very practical and relevant sourcing approach, too."

In general, senior leadership positions are the most likely to be targeted for headhunting services, with 66% of respondents tabbing that as their top choice, followed by positions where talent is difficult to find (44%), and 40% of respondents use headhunters to fill high-skilled positions.

Regarding the future use of headhunting for talent searches, the results are mixed. Overall, 23% of polled organizations said they don't plan to headhunt in the near future, while 22% are "discussing" the option, 20% are planning to try it on a limited basis and 16% plan to use headhunters on an increasing basis. Almost a quarter (23%) of high-performance organizations plan to increase the use of competitive recruiting practices, compared to just 4% of lower performers.

So, how else are companies recruiting these days? According to the study, 13% opt for online search engines (Google, etc.) from a high to very high extent, and the same percentage turn to LinkedIn as an avenue for finding talent search options. High-performance organizations are more likely to use search engines (20%) and LinkedIn (12%) than lower performers (23% and 9%, respectively).

The Competitive Recruiting Practices survey was conducted by i4cp in November 2009. The full results of the survey are available exclusively for all i4cp corporate members.

Plato, Competencies and the Ideal Employee

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:53:00 GMT

Maybe you have a vague recollection of Plato from your college days. You know, the Greek philosopher who believed in the existence of some ideal world that's separate from our physical world? He is, of course, the source of the term "Platonic ideal."

Whether we know it or not, most modern managers have a Platonist streak in them, a streak that often shows up in the way we think about talent these days.

The term "talent" is in itself a useful abstraction, shorthand for employees who have the kinds of skills, potential, attitudes and values that companies need to succeed. It suggests that a lot of organizations have an ideal employee in mind when it comes to their labor needs.

In fact, in a recent i4cp study that was requested by one of our member companies, four of five respondents indicated that their organizations have a sophisticated notion of the characteristics of that ideal employee. That is, their companies have identified a set of competencies that people throughout the organization need in order to be effective.

Our Talent Management Competencies Survey also found that, among the large majority that have such a set of competencies, 70% said that those competencies apply to all positions, not just leaders or high potentials.

"Establishing competencies has become standard practice, and it's a helpful one at that, associated with better performance," notes Senior VP of Research Jay Jamrog. "We found that about nine out of ten participants said such competencies are an important element of their talent management programs. They help define what talent actually means. Otherwise, talent management is just another meaningless business buzzword."

"But," warns Jamrog, "organizations have to keep in mind that making a list of crucial competencies is just one step in the process. Our research shows that there's a lot more to it than that."

Even the process of creating and maintaining the list requires good decision-making and logistical know-how. For example, should an organization apply these competencies to every employee, or is it more effective to apply them to a subset? The answer isn't cut and dried. Our research shows that, while nearly 80% of lower-performing organizations apply such competencies to all positions, only about 70% of higher performers do. Higher performers are twice as likely as lower performers to say such competencies apply to "all leadership positions, but not individual contributor positions."

So, the best practice in this area hinges on the specific needs of the organization. In some cases, confining these competencies to leadership or other key professional roles could be the right way to go.

i4cp's research also suggests that some combination of central control and flexibility is a winning combination when it comes to managing a list of competencies. That is, higher performers are more likely to say that there is a "central authority that controls variations in the list(s) of competencies considered crucial in specific units of [our] organization," but they're less likely to say that such a list is "completely standardized" and so beyond the influence of individual functions and business units.

This combination makes sense. Although a list of competencies helps anchor and define the meaning of talent, certain business units or departments may need to add to or even modify such a list to meet their specific needs.

So, the Platonic ideal of the perfect employee - one who has a complete set of essential competencies - is compelling and even useful, but organizations must also accommodate the real world, the place where unique individuals must be recruited, trained, and managed in ways that help them approach, but probably never quite attain, that ideal.

i4cp's 4-Part Recommendation:

Define the competencies that employees should have in order to be effective, recognizing that your organization will need to revisit and modify this list as your business and industry change.
Decide to whom the competencies should apply. Perhaps it is to all employees, or perhaps it is to some core subset of personnel who wield the greatest influence over your corporate culture.
Communicate the competencies well throughout the organization, integrating them into your array of talent management components, including recruitment, succession planning, learning and development, performance management, and the like.
Design your talent management competencies system so that there is some decision-making individual or group. Decide whether it's wise, given the context of your organization, to allow individual functions or business units to adjust these competencies to meet their own needs.