Having a captive audience can sometimes be a good thing, but in this case you could be setting yourself up for a serious retention problem. According to polls by Right Management, 60 percent of the employed were looking for a new job in 2010.  In 2011, that number has risen to an astounding 84%. Turnover like that could hamstring any company for years to come. The scariest part is that the only thing standing between you and a potential “jail break” is the Great Recession.

Alarming as that picture is, here’s another wrinkle. The employees we want to keep are usually the ones with the greatest ability to leave. Meaning that when the recovery comes and turnover picks up steam, it’s likely that many of your star performers will be among the first out the door. To boot, an inordinate amount of your intellectual capital, institutional knowledge and innovation will leave with them.

This puts economic recovery in a different light. Sure, you’ve been hoping for a recovery, but are you ready for it? Do you have a plan for preventing your most valuable employees from voting with their feet when hiring resumes?

Hopefully, you’ve been making valued employees feel respected and appreciated. Ideally, they believe that when the economy rebounds they will have upward mobility inside your company.

Proactive HR pros have been working with line managers to provide top performers with lateral “promotions” and cross-training opportunities that have a clear line of sight to the organization’s goals. This is to say nothing of perks like flex scheduling, telecommuting or executive mentoring?

Whatever your retention strategy, don’t make it one-size-fits-all. Things that appeal to Baby Boomers, who are least likely to leave, may not appeal to Gen X’ers or Millennials, who are quicker to leave. Now would also be a good time to evaluate and train line managers on engagement and retention.

Obviously, the 21st century definition of retention is not what it used to be. Few will spend their entire careers with one company. This situation begs a more pragmatic approach. For example, your retention goal could be based on getting key projects completed, transferring intellectual capital to others, or preparing successors to assume new responsibilities.

Typically, we don’t recognize retention problems until it’s too late.  We may or may not have a long runway to prepare for recovery, but it won’t be simply about hiring. It’s true that employees quit bosses, but they also quit companies. In other words prepare for economic recovery by committing to the people responsible for your success, because without them the recovery may pass you by.

About Damone Richardson

Damone Richardson, CIS Valued Partner has nearly 20 years of experience spanning the spectrum of Human Resources and Industrial Relations in the private, public and non-profit sectors. He has authored over 50 proprietary studies, and published numerous articles, and spoken at dozens of conferences. He currently manages Employee and Labor Relations at Harper College in Palatine, IL.  He has been a member of SHRP since April of this year, and is a member of the Newsletter Committee.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This begs an answer to the question of why some HR pros roll out the same programs year after year and expect that last’s year’s ineffective program will this year lead to growth and profitability.

When you consider factors such as global competition, regulation, unemployment, education, and technological change, execution of successful talent management strategies requires a fine-toothed approach where one must almost anticipate the future state of the economy and their industry, and adjust to them. Failure to account for the aforementioned external contingencies can, and often will, expose you to the risk that the best laid plans which may have taken you months or even years to create could be rendered obsolete – next week.

Think about it. If you don’t contextualize your efforts it’s possible that you could prepare people for roles that will cease to exist within your company, equip employees with soon to be antiquated capabilities, or give them skills that make them more attractive, and employable, to your competition.

The overarching point is that managing talent to impact the bottom line requires serious business savvy that extends beyond a mere knowledge of the products or services your company sells. Internally, it means getting a firmer grasp on your entire business. Facility with how finance, supply chain management, marketing, sales, and research and product development affect your strategies is good places to start.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of both the internal and external environments in which you operate should help position you, when circumstances change or something isn’t working, to calibrate your activities to assure uninterrupted efficacy. To use a football analogy: It’s all about adjustments.

It also means justifying your actions by measuring your contributions. In the absence of supporting evidence, resources will inevitably find their way away from you and to the areas proven or perceived to have the greatest impact on profitability. This is manifest by the fact that in the past when times got tough talent management, and HR in general, usually got a haircut.

In order to change the perception of HR from cost-center to profit-center it’s imperative that we be seen as a catalysts for innovation. For example, when needed skills don’t exist in our companies, and outside hiring is not an option, what do you do? Hopefully, you have already established credibility with line managers and you have them enlisted in employee engagement and development efforts that get employees where we need them to be. If you haven’t yet, get on the case, pronto!

Naturally, the dream scenario is when every individual on your payroll is making tangible and measurable contributions to your firm’s success whether in the form of immediate bottom-line impact, proactive management of risk, or innovation for the future. In the vast majority of organizations, we know this is simply not the case.

Thus, a huge opportunity exists. If we apply the “80-20 Rule” whereby 20% of all employees add 80% of all value, imagine what you could contribute by fully engaging another 20% of your workforce. This is a heavy lift, but those employees represent a tremendous source of underutilized talent that can be leveraged for a virtual windfall.

Of necessity that means many of us will have to learn new skills, wear new hats, and get comfortable with uncertainty. Daunting yes, but it really is the best of all possible options. Oh, and in case that isn’t enough, budgets are tight so make sure that your methods are both creative and parsimonious.

Damone Richardson has nearly 20 years of experience spanning the spectrum of Human Resources and Industrial Relations in the private, public and non-profit sectors. He has authored over 50 proprietary studies, and published numerous articles, and spoken at dozens of conferences. He currently manages Employee and Labor Relations at Harper College in Palatine, IL.  He has been a member of SHRP since April of this year, and is a member of the Newsletter Committee.

1. Real-time Demographics Shifts
2. Customer and Employee Expectations
3. Technology Demands/Drivers
4. Share of Wallet (Market Share)
5. Managing Organizational Change

In Part One, I am going start by sharing with you my thoughts regarding the first two of five business trends and their potential stresses. While you’re reading this post, take a few minutes to think about how these business trends could be impacting your business today, tomorrow and in the future.

REAL-TIME DEMOGRAPHICS SHIFTS

How many times have we heard this comment, “By the year 2050, the ethnic landscape is going to look totally different than it looks today?  Ethnic minorities are going to be the emerging majority”.  Well I have news for you; the demographic changes are having a sweeping effect across the US economy today, forty years early.  For a few sectors and industries, the changes are creating high-levels of age and retirement risks.  These risks will impact not only the number of workers that companies have to attract but also the efficiency and effectiveness of those workers.

This has a tremendous impact to your company’s balance sheet.  What if I told you that there is a way to gain additional revenue growth opportunities by leveraging these shifts with a strategy designed to create and capture value for your organization.  Sounds interesting right, I can see that you are scratching your chin right now.  Do you want more? Well what about this.

CUSTOMER AND EMPLOYEE EXPECTATIONS

Have you ever had customers in your business who want the universe, gift-wrapped and delivered yesterday? I can see you nodding your head YES?

Fortunately, most customers don’t demand the impossible. In fact, what they want is exceedingly reasonable. And what’s that? Well, switch for a moment from your service provider hat to your customer hat. When you’re a customer, what matters to you? What matters when you’re at the car dealer, the doctor’s office, or the airport? What matters to you when you’re on the phone ordering flowers, or awaiting technical support, or ordering a million-calorie pizza and a zero-calorie beverage?

Now let us put a diversity spin on this.  As I had mentioned before, the demographics are changing in real time.  The customer expectation for one demographic group is different from the next.  I am not just talking about ethnic diversity; I am also talking about age demographics as well. Not every customer has the same expectation or need. Some want fries with no salt; some want the hamburger without a bun, and others want to supersize with a diet coke. I know I am being funny here, but I am trying to make a point.  If your organization is not paying close attention to what your customer is saying, that truly is a missed business opportunity.  And yes, they will go to your competition if their voice is not being heard.

What about the employee, oh that’s right, you are an employee as well.  Isn’t there something that you expect from your employer? Don’t you want to be noticed, promoted and told your doing a great job?  But wait, we are in a bad economic situation here!  How many times have you been told to do more with less with the same pay?  Once again, does this sound all too familiar; I can see you nodding your head YES?

What is the real challenge?  The real challenge here is how does your company maximize, optimize and revitalize its workforce to acquire new and retain existing customers?  Because the real question here is, if we do not acquire and retain customers, check mate…game over, for those of you who like to play chess.

This concludes Part One of my blog post that touched base on some of the challenges and opportunities associated with these business trends.

Be on the lookout coming soon for Part Two, as I will dive into the third business trend impacting business, Technology Demands/Drivers.

If you wish to make a comment regarding this post, please do so, I welcome your comments.  Also, feel free to post this blog to your network by clicking on the following links below.

“Innovation can be defined as coming up with ideas that bring value to your customers and then bringing those ideas to life.” says Robert Tucker, author of Driving Growth through Innovation. Sounds like the type of employee that every company would want to not only find but hire. Before you run off in search of your next Thomas Edison read on.

The October issue of INC. Guidebook offers up some good advice regarding finding innovators. I have creatively added my outside-the-box thoughts to the points that were made.

• Decide which kind of creativity counts – Hiring for creativity starts with deciding how much of it you can tolerate. Many companies find it difficult to integrate true outside-the-box thinkers, true innovators.
• Breadth of Creativity vs. Depth of Creativity – Understand the difference between the two. Breadth of creativity is ad agency, IDEO, Disney Imangineers whereas depth of creativity is looking for better ways, process improvements within one’s own job or department that when implemented add value to your customers.
• Market your company to Attract Innovators – This starts with your web site, your career page or portal, job descriptions and the use of social media including Facebook, Twitter, employee testimonials on YouTube. Marketing to creative types does not exclude those candidates who are not creative. If anything it might attract a better quality of non-innovators.
• Recruit from nontraditional sources – Realize that expertise can be acquired, creativity can not. If you are looking for outside-the –box thinkers then think outside the box!
• Look for Career Adapters – Most companies would shy away from candidates who took a year off to trek the Appalachian Trail; who went to work for a non-profit  for little or no salary; who provided elder care for a dying relative. Look for experience, adaptability, passion, fortitude not just a certain number of years with a certain skill set.
• Know how creative they are – It starts well before the interview. Whether or not your marketing efforts attracted a creative candidate, how they manage to get noticed by your company is the first clue to how innovative they may be. Did they respond in a non-traditional manner, was there contact with the company different than most other candidates? In the interview, were they able to handle the behavior based questions with more than rehearsed answers? Could they think on their feet when faced with puzzle type or what animal would you be type questions?
• Build a Creative Culture – If you currently employ some innovators you want to keep them. If you are just looking to hire some creative types you want to make sure that they want to join your company and stay with you. Culture is everything. Building and maintaining a creative, innovative culture requires that the work inspires them, the compensation is more than financial incentives and the environment that they work in is a happy one that doesn’t squash their creativity.

A final thought, companies that innovate are often more successful than those that maintain a status quo. In order to innovate, you need to hire some creative, innovative, outside-the-box thinkers. And in order to hire these types your company needs to have a culture of creativity, of innovation.

So, what comes first the chicken or the egg, the creative culture or the innovative employee?

For me, I am now off in search of another box that I can think outside of.

Often the most important thing to help win over the cynics is to prove that initiatives will work, often by conducting pilots to demonstrate the impacts that they can have on business performance. New HR, Talent Management and Diversity initiatives can sometimes be perceived as gimmicks and additional costs which are being conducted to check the box rather than ultimately improve business performance.

There are always going to be organizations that are reluctant to change, set in their ways, and blinkered in terms of the people they hire. However, most of us can validate that the most successful teams we’ve been part of offered a breadth and diversity of experience, knowledge and background. Whether that was a variety of different personality types (DISC, Myers Briggs etc), demographics or experience, the more different ideas and opinions that can contribute towards a target, project or end goal, the more successful it is likely to be.

Too often, companies can be judgmental about the type of people that are going to bring them success. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the D managers from the DISC assessments who believe that cracking the whip and working 20 hours a day is the only way to bring results, but this neglects the other 75% of the workforce who are not motivated by that approach.

In my opinion, an important starting point to encourage successful integration is an objective way of assessing and comparing the talents within your organization. Maybe one of the least likely people can have the biggest positive influence on the successful completion of a project, but can be overlooked because they don’t fit the stereotype. Using a tool that enables you to define the skill set and search and rank the workforce for the right talent to fit the requirements may reveal talent where you least expect it.

Measure success purely on the outcomes matching or exceeding expectations, not on the profile of employee that you think will be able to deliver the goods, and you will soon realize that diversity and objectivity are powerful tools in improving the bottom line.

As someone who spent the first part of their career in the UK and has worked in the US for the past 4 years, I’m often surprised at how reluctant companies in the US can be to look at people with varying professional backgrounds. It seems that once you’ve taken the first step on a career path, you’re committing yourself to that path for the long haul, and it’s difficult to change you mind later in your career. In the UK I found employers were more open to different experience, and attitude and transferable skills were what counted.

Starting in Finance didn’t necessarily mean you couldn’t switch to Marketing ten years later, as long as you had the right reasons for making the change. Many successful organizations like PayPal have actively sought to hire people for key roles who have different backgrounds, to bring a fresh approach to the role.

For me the key to this question is therefore being open-minded, objective and willing to try new things. There might be some growing pains in trying to change a company’s culture, but in the long run the benefits will be clear.

Changing the way you do business may not always be called innovation, but that is what it is. Innovation is coming up with ideas that add value to your customers, both internal and external, and bringing those ideas to life. Innovation creates change.

Wanting to change the way you do business is important, understanding how to change the way you do business is critical. Here are six steps that you can take on the road to becoming an innovative company.

Step 1 – Encourage ideas. If you find yourself saying “no” a lot, you might not be encouraging your team to generate ideas. While you may not like the ideas you are hearing, you might be inadvertently discouraging them. Give enough of a leash to experiment, if for no other reason than to keep folks motivated to come to you with their best thinking.

Step 2 – Embrace change. Innovation requires adaptability.  It’s easy to rely on the habits, structures and standards that have served you well.  You need to actively work at being receptive to change.

Step 3 – Focus on customers.  There are many stories of people developing a product and then looking for a buyer – a solution in search of a problem.  Ideally you would work to understand customer needs first and then develop solutions.

Step 4 – Take the time to seek different perspectives.  Buy into the idea that if you want something done right, don’t do it yourself.  Seek solutions from those around you, ideally from folks with very different perspectives from you. Create situations where you are surrounded by people who can offer creative ideas or inspirations. This means making time to network, to read about what others are doing, and to get out of your space to see how others run their businesses. Always be open to suggestions from employees.

Step 5 – Engage and iterate.  Your innovation doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be constructed well enough to learn from your customers and then improve. Try a beta version of your product, service or process first and solicit feedback. Running a business requires constant iteration to adapt to evolving demands.

Step 6 – Don’t Try Doing it Alone. Call in some experts. Running a successful small business is more than a 40 hour a week job, it is your life. Most small businesses don’t have sufficient band width to tackle projects that will take time and energy away from day to day activities. As important as embracing change and becoming more innovative is to the success of your company, you may not be able to do it well without some outside help. Our company, Current Innovative Solutions can help where help is needed, everything from design and implementation of new processes to marketing and branding initiatives to acting as a sounding board for new, creative ideas.

So, if you are looking to change the way you are doing business follow the steps above and let CIS act as your guide. It is an Innovative thing to do.

“In its simplest definition, innovation is coming up with ideas and bringing them to life.” Tucker further suggests that for innovation to have a true and lasting impact on the growth and success of a company, a customer perceived value needs to be created. This customer perceived value is the purpose of innovation.

Our company, Current Innovative Solutions was founded as a consortium of highly experienced professionals to help business leaders come up with ideas that help create customer value and bring those ideas to life. In other words, we help you be Innovative.

Becoming an Innovative business is not easy; it is not in every company’s DNA; it is not part of every company’s existing culture. Innovation implies change and many companies, some old line some not, resist change. The idea that what worked before should work now, or if it ain’t broke why fix it, is still a very common attitude in the business world.

A quick review of the current INC 500 would be enough evidence that innovation and change works. The number one ranked company based on revenue growth over a three year period (2006-09) resells electricity and natural gas to consumers and businesses. There revenue growth for the period covered was a whopping 20,369%! They did not invent a new technology or product, they are reselling utilities. They achieved their phenomenal growth through innovation. They changed the way utilities were sold.

Every other company on the INC 500 list made it in part because they were innovative. They changed the game. They came up with ideas and brought those ideas to life. In turn they created value for their customers.

What about your business, is it innovative? Is there a culture in your company that allows for a free exchange of ideas as well as an opportunity and resources to bring those ideas to life? If not then it may be time to bring in the innovative experts, Current Innovative Solutions. It may be the best idea you have come up with in some time.

And by the way, Current Innovative Solutions plans to be on the INC 500 list perhaps as early as 2013. We have to be because Innovative is our middle name.

Constellation Strategic Advisory Services is a cutting-edge management consulting firm that specializes in an innovative analytical methodology called Organizational Connectivity™.  This approach, which is based on the field of Social Network Analysis (“SNA”), uncovers the patterns of interaction and collaboration between individuals.  This type of information does not appear on any traditional organization charts, but it provides vivid details about group interrelationships and how work actually gets done.

To view this exciting cutting edge human capital innovation, click here to read more about Organizational Connectivity.

Here at Current Innovative Solutions (CIS), we understand the various challenges faced by many Diversity Professionals. We understand the complexity of creating diverse representation, proving the business case for diversity, managing diversity & inclusion, measuring and delivering results, and replicating the message and actions across the organization. We also know that there are limited tools to support Diversity and Inclusion workforce strategies.  This is why CIS has partnered with Zapoint to develop the Diversity Resource Management Tool and provide Consulting Services to Chief Diversity Officers, Diversity Managers, Diversity Councils and Employee Resource Groups.

Click on link to view New Diversity Innovation Newsletter Volume No.1 v.5.