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Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous. So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world. Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a startup. — Google CEO Larry Page

With these powerful words, Google’s CEO Larry Page demonstrates that as Google grows in size, it must take actions in order to maintain its speed and startup-like attributes. If he fails, Google will slide into what I call “the Great to Good downward spiral.” It has already happened to notable firms like Kodak, Xerox, AOL, HP, 3M, Sears, MySpace, and Yahoo. In part 1 of this article I covered the 25 factors that can be used to identify if your organization is already in a bureaucratic slide. This Part 2 covers potential action steps that corporate leaders can take to prevent a slide at newer firms or to turn it around at more established firms.

20 Action Steps for Stopping or Preventing a “Great to Good” Slide Into Mediocrity keep reading…

The science of recruiting is years behind our peers in other disciplines, but when I see research like this journal article, ”Paying More to Get Less: The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal Mobility,” I know we’re beginning to catch up.

This study was published in the Administrative Science Quarterly in September 2011 and recently described in detail by Peter Cappelli (my favorite Wharton Professor), in his column for HR Executive magazine, Paying More to Get Less.

It is perhaps the best work I’ve seen in years.

In the original research, the author describes how he dug into the data of one financial services firm to identify and track a number of jobs filled by both internally and externally sourced candidates over a protracted period of time.

He then compared subsequent performance ratings of the incumbents (over years) and found statistically significant evidence that:

• Internal candidates performed better than those hired from the outside.
• External candidates took as long as three years to achieve the performance levels of their internally promoted peers.
• External candidates were paid 15% more on average.
• The performance of individuals who were externally sourced was higher if they were not brought in through search.

Now this is science I enjoy … not because it is necessarily true beyond the one firm in which the study was done, but because it is transparent, describing methodology openly and in a way that we (dear readers) would be able to improve on and replicate within your own firms.

As someone who is getting tired of tons of unsupported opinions stated as fact and megatons of research by vendor content creators with serious conflicts of interest, this is refreshing. Give me more.

Does your organization have a succession program in place? Too many organizations and small businesses default to the practice of reactionary assignment of a successor amid a now-glaringly-vacant position, or embark on a rushed external hire that often ends up as a high cost disappointment from a ”hiring misfire.” The consequences are not only expensive but are also a missed opportunity due to lack of focus and the inability to support fast growth.

And this is the challenge for recruiters: urgent hires, and the inability to explain the succession process (i.e. growth potential) to candidates, as well as to current employees who are looking to build their career. Recruiters can have an important role in helping leadership address the issue of succession readiness.

A succession strategy is about having an identified plan to fill key positions within your organization. A succession program is the implemented process of identifying, developing, and transitioning potential successors for the company’s present and future key roles, aligned with the talent and ambition of its current employees and talent network.

A common error that we see in succession planning is to target only the key executive roles (CEO, COO, CFO). This is a significant risk unless you are a micro business. For example, if you are in the construction or transportation industry, a logistics manager may be critical for the success of your business. Having a vacancy in this position could quickly result in a decrease in service and an increase in customer complaints, and possibly a decrease in customer retention.

This is why critical positions across the business need to be identified and replacement processes planned.

In our work with companies we hear some common arguments and justifications. We repeatedly see that the president or key executive doesn’t believe there is an immediate need for a succession plan. Their stated arguments are, “we’re too small,” “we’re too new,” “we already have good people in place,” or “I’m not going anywhere soon!”

In an unlikely static environment where no one leaves, no one gets ill (including the owner, president, or senior managers), growth isn’t that important, and performance is exceptional — these arguments hold true. But, we don’t live in a static business environment. People do leave, they do get sick, the executives need to focus on growing the business verses operating it, the employees are not all good performers, and some roles are hard to fill!

There is also a tendency to hold on to marginal performers because there is no clear plan on how to replace them. The impact: the business suffers, the executives suffer, employee morale and productivity decreases, the customers become less than satisfied with their service, and new candidates are not attracted to your company.

When organizations do not have a succession program in place, consequences include: keep reading…

I was just reviewing the predictions I made for 2011 written at roughly this time a year ago. Much of what I thought would happen unfolded as expected, except for talent management. I had thought there would more focus on integrating the employee development and recruitment functions, and more internal hiring. I still think that’s on tap for this year. I was on target regarding hiring: There was no great uptick in the volume of hiring, and unemployment remained static. And I was on target with predicting that social media would be core to recruiting success and that RPOs would thrive.

Over the past two years, the way we think about work has changed. Perhaps accelerated by the recession, there is more focus now on finding satisfying and rewarding work than on just finding a job that pays the most.

More people are thinking about finding something interesting, challenging, and perhaps even fun to do that provides enough income. The key words here are interesting/challenging and enough. Fewer expect to get rich and there is less focus on the money. There is more focus on lifestyle, flexibility, free time to pursue other learning or hobbies or sports, and less interest in family. I’ll do more columns on these trends soon, but partly because of them here are the major changes that I see happening this year.

Internal Recruiting Goes Mainstream

Perhaps one of the most significant trends will be a greater focus on finding current employees to fill existing jobs. keep reading…

The New Year is an opportune time to “raise the bar” by doing something strategic in talent management. In many corporations, new plans and budgets take effect at the first of the year, so the holiday period preceding the New Year is an ideal time to review the potential strategic actions to put in front of your team. Unfortunately, many talent management leaders are risk adverse, and although they constantly talk about the need to “be more strategic” they all-too-frequently find excuses that indefinitely postpone those dramatic and strategic actions.

The leadership set aside at least half the day for the team to identify upcoming problems and opportunities and the resulting strategic moves that need to be made. This article is merely a checklist of the strategic talent management actions that I have found that the very best corporations should have on their potential to-do list.

The Top 15 Potential Strategic Actions to Consider in Talent Management

If you’ve decided to stop fighting fires and to do something major with a strategic impact, here is a list of possible programs and actions that you should consider. keep reading…

Of late I’ve been making the contention that the strategies and tactics used to recruit active candidates is fundamentally different than the ones used for passive candidates. Until this foundational difference is resolved, companies will never be able to hire enough top talent to meet their needs, unless they have a big employer brand to hide their process inefficiencies.

Employer brands, however, have limited shelf lives in maturing markets. As an example, just compare Google today and its continuing series of product blunders to the Microsoft of 10-15 years ago. When a company’s business strategy changes due to changing market conditions, its talent acquisition strategies must immediately follow suit.

Quickly, here’s what I believe are at the root cause of most companies’ hiring challenges: keep reading…

I have stated for years that “recruiting is just sales with a crummy budget,” but there is one major differentiator: sales professionals widely accept the principle that you can’t successfully sell to a customer with multiple options unless you fully understand the customer. Professional sales organizations have been using market research for decades to learn the needs, expectations, and the buying behaviors of the customer. Unfortunately few recruiting organizations have adopted this practice. If market research influenced recruiting, there would be: keep reading…

Apple in Sydney

In Part 2 of this case study on Apple’s talent management practices, I look at its approach to innovation, compensation, and benefits, careerpathing, and online recruitment (its career site). Some approaches discussed are unique to sub-factions within Apple, as would be expected in any organization of significant size. It’s also quite rare for organizations that design, manufacture, and sell through direct retail to have consistent approaches across all units.

Talent Management Lessons To Learn and Copy (continued)

You should not be surprised to learn that the firm that made the term “think different” a brand uses talent management approaches that are well outside the norm. In addition to the lessons presented in Part 1, some approaches other firms can learn from Apple include: keep reading…

In Part 1 of this series we looked at the first 35 of 70 exceptional employee referral program features. This episode continues with 36-70 and covers features related to program responsiveness, communications, special needs/populations, technology, and process management.

V. Program Responsiveness Features

Being responsive to those who refer and the referrals they submit are critical features that drive program loyalty, participation, and engagement.

1. Rapid response to a referral is critical – a lack of responsiveness to employee referrals is the #1 program killer. The best programs set a target of getting feedback to the referrer and the referred individual within 48 – 72 hours of submission (Aricent & AmTrust Bank).
2. Expedited interviewing – some firms make a commitment to decide whether to interview/not interview all referrals within a week. Others make a more narrow commitment, which is to actually schedule an interview with all “A” quality employee referral candidates within a week of receiving their referral (Owens Corning).
3. Referrals must be tagged and the processing expedited – in the best programs, all referral applications are tagged in order to measure program effectiveness. In addition, the tagged referrals are given a priority for processing (i.e. fast tracked). This is necessary in order to ensure that both the employee and the referred individual feel like they are “special” (Accenture).
4. “On the spot” screening – consider developing a process where resumes collected at the referral desk undergo instant screening followed by instant feedback to the employee and the candidate (Tata consultancy).

VI. Communicating with employees and applicants

High-performing referral programs require frequent and effective communications. keep reading…

Few roles could be more important in an organization with deteriorating performance than the roles responsible for crafting a new strategy and the roles responsible for securing the talent that will make that strategy successful.

Climbing wall at Google - Boulder

Firms that have successfully overcome negative momentum and turned their performance around often select new leadership with a proven ability to operationalize a much narrower strategy. They also accept that the talent that was with the organization going into decline may not be the best talent to help pull the organization back up.

Turning around an organization is a tremendous feat, one that involves numerous cultural battles. It’s illogical to assume that any organization in a state of decline could transform itself into the next Apple, Google, or Facebook without dramatic changes to every aspect of its culture. keep reading…

With some companies focusing more on internal hiring and beginning to look at new models of working, I’ve heard more comments and questions about “career development” and what that may mean for any given individual in today’s environment. Working in an evolving and ever-changing industry, in a fluid, global environment, how can your candidates get from here to there? How should they know when to make a move and what that move should be? Where is “there”?

Gertrude Stein is noted as saying “There is no there there,” and I am a firm believer in this philosophy. Although many people have succeeded and gone far in their careers using the traditional “ladder” method (simply moving up within their job family), I’d like to suggest that there is another way that can take your candidates way beyond “there”: the lattice. keep reading…

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly 10 years to the day since Free Agent Nation was published, and nearly 14 years since the article by Daniel Pink graced the cover of Fast Company magazine. Since that time, a lot has changed, but given the inflection point we are experiencing with regard to the economy, the job market, accelerating recruitment challenges, as well as changes in recruitment and candidate behaviors, it’s useful to revisit the free agent discussion in light of what has changed (and what has not). keep reading…

Cisco Systems has been quietly doubling up on its recruiting efforts, but with a twist: the target market is made up of the company’s own employees. In particular, it has been making it easier for employees to get promoted into different departments, rather than first moving laterally from one division to another and then getting promoted.

This all began in November of 2008 when people like then-staffing-chief and now Chief Learning Officer Don McLaughlin, the HR SVP Brian Schipper, and others realized it really needed to keep the talent it had as the company grew in areas like virtual healthcare and smart grids. In January 2009, Heather Yurko, Amy Buck, and a 30-person team of others in Cisco — from the compensation, staffing, operations, and other departments — ran a prototype test. If all went well, the program, called TalentConnection, would expand.

It went well, and it did. keep reading…

In the November Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, in an article titled “Talent Acquisition as a Tool of Succession Management,” I discuss talent acquisition in the context of succession management programs. I propose that our recruiting leaders are not involved enough in succession planning and the execution of those plans. You’ll get more detail in the Journal, but to summarize: Talent managers and the executive echelon can make much more use of their internal recruiting capability than they currently do. Of course, it wouldn’t be a replacement strategy but simply a way to enhance and augment corporate succession management.

I Like My People, Even if They Don’t Perform!

Talent managers, in the designing, planning, and executing of a given plan, usually restrict themselves to the question: “Who internally can I preserve or develop to replace Jane Smith if she leaves,” and disregard the question “who externally can I attract” for consideration with Jane for that same position.

The implications of not using all available sources in succession management programs and not including talent acquisition as part of the plan (which also means integrating it with workforce planning) is apparent: What can be the greatest strategic competitive advantage in the human resource and human capital management arena is reduced to nothing more than a tactical, possibly irrelevant process, likely documented on a seldom-used Excel sheet. keep reading…

When you think about building a diverse workforce, an internal mobility program may not be the first thought that comes to mind. In fact, when we at Sodexo first looked at internal mobility programs, we were focused on helping our employees achieve their career aspirations through internal promotions and hires.

However, over time, we’ve come to learn that these programs also represent a vital component of our company’s journey to build a diverse and inclusive workforce.

The Beginning of an Evolution at Sodexo

Like many companies, Sodexo’s diversity initiatives have evolved over time. keep reading…

How well does your organization select and integrate talent for internal promotion? If you are like many organizations we’ve seen — not very well.

When promoting from within, do you select the person who is doing the best job in their current role? Do you promote the person you like the most, the person who has the most seniority, or the person who gives you attention and deference? It is not unusual to promote a good technical person or a good clinical person into a management position. Technology companies and healthcare organizations do this frequently.

If this is your current practice, then you are missing out on the opportunity to improve business performance. You may also be dramatically and unnecessarily increasing your cost of operations. This is hardly a good strategy in the current economy.

Look at the cost of a bad (mismatched) promotion: keep reading…

(Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.)

No matter how enthusiastic your employees are about participating in an internal movement program, they are bound to be somewhat frustrated if there aren’t a wide variety of assignments available for them to choose from. Even if you successfully excite your managers and other rotation program participants, you can’t automatically assume that they know how to identify or develop exciting assignments or rotations.

As a result, the rotation program manager needs to design a process and provide managers with a variety of suggestions and tips in order to make it easy for them to create internal movement projects, assignments, and rotations. This section highlights over 20 of the approaches that I have found to be effective in helping managers create more and better rotations. keep reading…

(Editor’s note: This is the fifth installment in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1, Part II, Part III., and Part IV.)

In this part of the series on job rotations and stretch assignments, I will highlight three key tools or approaches that rotation program managers can use to make an organization’s job rotation program more effective. These approaches include: 1) the critical elements of a well-designed individual job rotation; 2) tips for increasing employee participation in the program; and 3) a checklist for assessing whether your organization is a good “fit” for implementing a job rotation or stretch assignment program. keep reading…

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1, Part II, and Part III. Next week, installment five of this series will address tools and tips you can use to improve your job rotation program.)

This series of articles started out listing the pain points that many organizations are experiencing today as a result of rotation-based development initiatives rooted in history and antiquated by Henry Ford’s standard.

It then progressed into program goals and key elements that characterize more modern second-generation programs under development. Last week’s installment explored the many program variations that are expanding the scope of rotation programs, making them more relevant as tools capable of addressing retention, motivation, and productivity improvement.

This week’s installment looks at emerging best practices and program metrics that can be used to assess your program’s performance.

Best Practices in Job Rotations and Internal Movement

Over the years, many firms have used job rotations in a variety of formats.

The most famous firm that has used internal movement for development is General Electric, but other firms have developed some best practices that can also provide learning.

keep reading…

(Editor’s note: This is Part III in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1 and Part II; next week in the conclusion to the series, look for best practices and program metrics.)

When corporate revenues are down or stagnant, talent managers typically shift their focus away from volume hiring to developing and improving existing employees.

Executives are always challenged to make the correct “buy or build” decision, but when hiring is frozen, organizations must place an increased emphasis on internal movement and job rotations to close critical gaps in talent supply and demand.

Unfortunately, many rotation programs are doomed from the start to produce mediocre results, because they employ a “one-size-fits-all” model that guarantees lower program participation rates.

As with most products and services, offering different program variations makes it more likely that your target employees will find a job rotation that fits their needs as well as the organization’s. Since the war for talent began more than a decade ago, the type of job rotation formats have expanded dramatically. It’s important to be aware of the various development opportunities available and the benefits and risks associated with each.

Here is a list of 26 different types of internal movements to consider.

Obviously, not every firm can offer employees all of these options, but it is not uncommon to develop programs that incorporate a handful.

keep reading…