Why do so many hiring managers resist an active role in the hiring process?

Ron Katz, founder of Penguin Human Resource Consulting, tells it like this in today’s webcast:

• Insecurity – “I don’t know how.”
• History – “I’m not good at this.”
• Time – “I’m on deadline.”
• Responsibility – “It’s HR’s job.”
• Software - “I don’t know the system.”

I think we can add one more to the list:  “Recruiting hasn’t established a relationship with me.”

For a business that’s all about the relationship, recruiters seem to be making an awful lot of noise when asked why we haven’t talked to more people about our jobs.  The technology that’s out there is fantastic and improved talent acquisition incredibly.  But if hiring great people was simply a digital interaction, the robots would have taken over by now.

The next time you hear a tired excuse from one of your stakeholders, be frank with yourself when you wonder when the last time was that you worked at your relationship with them.

Today’s webcast will focus on work/life initiatives and how to measure the impact of these programs.  What does work/life have to do with talent acquisition?  We’ll discuss that in a bit.  First- let’s define what “work/life” is.  According to our presenter, Dr. Amy Richman of WFD Consulting, “[w]ork-life is a perspective. Companies that take a work-life perspective regard employees from a whole person point of view. They acknowledge that it is not just skills, abilities, and career goals but also work environment and personal and family life that give employees the energy and commitment to contribute fully. “

Creating, fostering, and nurturing a healthy work/life strategy is a competitive edge in talent acquisition- especially amongst semi-retiring Boomers and smart young Millennials.

Dr. Richman encourages organizations to ask this question: Does your company’s work-life effort have these components?

•Dependent care programs & policies

•Health and wellness programs & policies

•Education benefits and programs

•Financial and legal programs

•Flexible work practices

•Organizational culture that enables employees to work efficiently and manage work and personal responsibilities

•Workload and work redesign efforts to eliminate low value work and achieve business results

•Community focus and collaboration to leverage investments

Are there any  missing components?  Do you disagree with any?

Finally, Dr. Richman demonstrates how to measure the impact of work/life programs, and share some metrics from a case study at IBM.  And those metrics are pretty darn powerful- through the lens of an employee survey, IBM found that over 40% of their employees ranked work/life balance as the 1st or 2nd reason for continuing to work for the company.

If your aim is to be a master of social utilities, you should strive to mimic Accenture.  If your goal is to be an expert in campus marketing and talent acquisition, you have no better model than Carrie Dacey, where she leads the US Recruitment Marketing team.

Accenture has implemented some really courageous and innovative social networking methods.  And here’s a hint:  it isn’t all just about LinkedIn.  (No offense to LinkedIn, of course.)

• Video Blogs from real employees about real work.  Nothing says “realistic job preview” from hearing it directly from the source.  Our newest generation is not amused or tricked by actors reading scripts or corporate schills.
• Reading more your style?  Then surf on over to the at least one dozen different active blogs, again from real employees about their actual work and what it’s like to do it.
• Accenture has a virtual presence in Second Life.  Now, I never managed to even get out of the tutorial in SL, but that doesn’t mean others don’t play there.  (Apparently the top online user has spent a total of 726 hours online in SecondLife.  That’s over 30 NON-STOP days.  Or over 90 working days.)  Talk about a captive audience.  Enough has been said about the trials and tribulations of recruitment marketing by minds far more powerful than mine, so I won’t digress too much further.  But I must raise this final point:  if you aren’t there, who is?
• Yup, Accenture has a corporate Facebook page, too.  Actually, it has more than one.

Get the point yet?  These sites- and I am guessing their strategy- is about much more than “Apply Here for Job Now”.  Sure, that’s one of the overall aims, but it isn’t the end-all be-all.

Their social networking strategy also isn’t an endgame- rather, they already have a terrific talent mindset and want others that share in that vision, and this is how they figured out to find them.  Oh, and by the way, those blogs aren’t edited. 

I am thrilled to be launching a new blog on talent acquisition- what a fantastic place to discourse on the good, great, and not-so-great practices, people, and ideas I have the privilege of hearing every day.  It is my role and pleasure to direct the content we present to you on the topic of finding and hiring talent, and I spend most of my days seeking out the very same.

I’d like to set the tone for each consecutive entry you’ll read here by offering an opinion on a consistent theme I see behind every organization that gets it right.  And I’m not talking just about hiring the best folks, I also mean offering the most to the world, reaping great returns and generally exceeding where others fail.  My proposal is this:  that greatness balances on the edge of one individual’s passion.  It all begins with one person’s devotion and enthusiasm, and can’t succeed without it.  So what am I saying?  That passionate recruiters- those loyally devoted to hiring the best and staking their claim on nothing less- are the first critical component to hiring terrific people.

Look around you- who are these rock stars of talent acquisition?  I encourage you to nominate them here- we need to showcase their passion.  Maybe it’s even you!