A1. I was asking more from an HR Managers perspective. Is it ok to monitor job boards to see which of my current employees are looking elsewhere and engage them in the hope of changing their mind? More importantly, what are the long term and short term negative impacts of such a practice? It seems to be bordering on employee privacy rights. If not legally, then morally.

B. Are there service providers out there that provide company HR Managers with an outsourced monitoring service?

Also, yes to A2.

Regarding B, can you be more specific about what you’re asking?

A: Is it OK for an HR Manager to:
1. Monitor the online job boards to find which employees are considering jumping ship?
2. Engage such employees (Not confront them) to understand what potential holes can be fixed? The immediate cost savings are obviously apparent. The tangential short term and long term implications are what I would like to know more about.

B: Are such services offered by a third party vendor? I have looked high and low, but have come up empty.

Thanks.
KJ.

Cheers,
Keith

@Anmol – thanks for your kind comments. Don’t hesitate to get in touch directly if you ever have any questions. fraser@headhuntin.com.

“And all in all you should be prepared for someone to leave.”
Correct in principle, as would a mutually beneficial employment relationship based on respect between two mature adults… In practice, many/most employers want someone to leave when THEY say so, not earlier or later. As far as “a mutually beneficial relationship based on respect between two mature adults…” I think way down deep a lot of employers would prefer an employment relationship based on domination & submission- if not a slave then a domestic animal. Think of a technical/professional superstar version of “Smithers” on The Simpsons- someone who lives to anticipate his/her employer’s wants/needs, and would be willing to die for them, yet could be tossed away without a care when no longer useful, and would be ever so happy to train his/her replacement… Folks, you think I’m being to harsh? Well, you may not have worked for some of the “pieces if work “I have….

Drifting away from the rather creepy psychological stuff, it does make sense to me that an employer should wish to anticipate and minimize unnecessary turnover- just don’t ask recruiters to do it- it’s diametrically opposed to our interests, i.e. as long as there is money to pay recruiters, substantial turnover gives us work…

Cheers,

Keith

I was referring to people in general, HMs and recruiters, as I’ve had this issue with both in the past, contract side and corporate side for recruiters. I think good recruiters will be honest about a company, but there are plenty of resume mills out there taking a volume approach to overcome the losses they likely make.

@ Martin
Good points, the contract side isn’t often thought of.

@ Keith
I’d much prefer to let someone else storm the beach on using FB and other social media in that way. I realize that would keep me from being an innovator, but my personal views just can’t support it. I believe people should have performance goals and be measured against them, pure and simple. If they do well they should be paid well and treated well, if they do poorly they should be trained and corrected or let go if it’s perpetual bad performance for whatever reason. I personally don’t care about their social media presence or anything else, and I don’t think many if any people have the ability to make use of that kind of high level data/intelligence as it may relate to recruiting and retention these days. As such it’s more a violation of their personal lives when it happens than anything else. And all in all you should be prepared for someone to leave. What if they walk in front of a bus or something? They’re still gone, but you can’t plan for that. So you should step the preparedness back a notch and realize that anyone may leave at any time for any reason, and that retention in those cases where you can get warning is secondary to making sure you know what you’re going to do if it happens and you don’t have any warning.

Always good to see your comments Keith – thanks for contributing. I pity the readers who read your responses for the first time – it take a few of your responses to work out the Keithlish (your acronym language). I’m fluent now! All the best. Keep flying the flag!

@ Richard: Couldn’t have said it better. Also, you SHOULD write. Finally, the owner of your company was very heavy-handed with what he asked, but ISTM good sense that internal or contract recruiters should check up on resume boards to see who might be planning to fly the coop- I frequently do. Large companies could hire what I call an “External Employee Engagement Specialist or EEES” aka, “Snoop” to monitor employees’ external SN activity and perhaps use some of those new tools which indicate by their activity on FB, LI, Github, StackOverflow. etc. that someone may be thinking of leaving. In the event that some activity were noticed, appropriate actions could be taken to help diffuse the situation (if the person were valuable) or start the search for a new one ahead of time- either way much value is gained and money saved. If you prefer, you could offer your valued employees “multi-year, guaranteed-raise/bonus, no-termination-without-cause employment contracts”, and that’ll make sure the sane ones stay. I’d prefer to see companies employ the latter, and would expect them to see the former…

Cheers,

Keith “Think If I Used My Powers for Good and Not for Evil” Halperin

BTW most people here are recruiters just like you. The writers are just recruiters who happen to contribute articles. You should write the article you wish to see on here as you’re clearly very passionate about it which is always a great starting point.

In terms of ethics: they can never be bound fully by written rules. Words can’t hold the spirit of fair play, truthfulness, and faithful service- they can only barely contain people who lack character, but they can’t substitute for it, and that applies to every area of life.

@Andre – thanks – I’m glad the article resonates with your experience. Hopefully some people will leave your client from time to time to keep you in business! :)