Talent Management 14.2.5 Your instance of Deltek Talent Management will be updated to version 14.2.5 on Saturday, April 1, 2017, between 2:00 AM – 10:00 AM EST. This update occurs during an 8-hour window where you may experience an interruption of service. Please be sure all affected users are aware of this update.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE MONTHLY UPDATE
As part of our ongoing commitment to address customer needs, we will be releasing our Talent Management monthly update on Saturday, April 1, version 14.2.5. This release delivers fixes and enhancements, including:
Recruiting: Approvers who have been off-boarded will no longer be receiving “Offer Approved by Candidate” notifications, and internal applicants will not experience missing or incorrect data in some fields on the Internal Resume Form. Merge code enhancement allows Users to display Referral Source on Letters.
Please note that the Release Notes will become available on Monday, April 3, 2017 when we send a follow-up notification to confirm the update is complete.
Why does the new hire experience matter? If you are asking yourself this, think back to the last time you started at a company and how it set your expectations for what working there would be like. Were you made aware of your expectations? Did you understand what you needed to do, both from a paperwork and also to get up to speed in the new position? And how did your interactions with your team affect your success in the early days of the new job?
And, even if you had a good experience, there is a good chance you’ve also had a bad one, so don’t forget to think about that, too, and how it may have set the stage quite early for your decision to move on.
Some of the common frustrations of new hires when they come into the work space stem around a few areas: too much paperwork, nothing is ready, and everyone is too busy to help them. There are solutions you can put in place in both cases to alleviate these concerns and make the experience positive for everyone.
Too much paperwork
There are so many forms a new hire has to complete, it is not uncommon to spend a significant amount of time with HR or alone at their desk on their first day filling them out – and this isn’t fun for anyone. Where ever possible, you should make these forms available for the new hire to complete before their first day on the job – an online onboarding portal is the perfect place to capture this information. Definitely make sure to include government forms, employee manual, and code of conduct, but also make sure that this new hire portal is welcoming to new employees by sharing a written message or welcome video.
Nothing is ready
Part of making the new hire feel welcome is having things ready for them when they get there. Having a desk is great (especially if that desk is already assembled for them), but there are many other things – such as laptop, phone, email, and office supplies – that should be ready for them day one. This can be done quite easily by letting others know ahead of time that the new hire is joining. Once you’ve had that offer accepted and are ready to move forward it is time to let others know that your new hire is coming so there is no delay and no sitting twiddling thumbs on their first day.
Everyone is too busy to help
While it can be hard to have everyone stop what they are doing and help the new hire get adjusted, you should have at least a few people in their corner to help them succeed. At a minimum, HR and their manager need to make an effort to meet with them their first few days – HR to wrap up any outstanding paperwork and answer questions, and their manager to introduce them to their new team and make sure they know and have what they need to perform their job duties. But you should consider adding a third person to this mix – a buddy or mentor is a great way to build a relationship between employees and make sure they have a good example to follow. This buddy can be involved earlier than the first day, too, by including them in interviews and welcome aboard messaging. They will also be a great resource for the new hire (especially if the manager is busy as is often the case) as a helper, keeper of knowledge, and coach in special skills needed for the job.
New hires and their experience matter, so make sure you take the above into account to plan for success. Engage the team and mentors in a new hire’s success and work together to win for both the new hire and the team. To get more insights watch our webinar: Enhancing Onboarding for Shorter Time to Productivity
Let us put away the myths and the misconceptions around Social Recruiting – that partaking in Social Recruiting will attract and add to the amount of unqualified applicants already in the recruiter’s inbox. If anything, Social Recruiting helps attract more qualified applicants and it helps single out the best talent. How, you ask? Let’s simply start by looking over some key stats to begin our appreciation and love for Social Recruiting:
93% of Recruiters review a candidate’s social profile (Source). This gives recruiters a more personal view of the candidate and can help them determine whether or not they will be a good fit for the company culture.
73% of companies have successfully hired using social media (Source). The ease of use that comes from social recruiting has benefited companies that more and more of them are following this trend. They are able to put forward a more personal view of the company, and are able to provide easier ways to apply for a position online.
42% of companies say that the quality of candidates has improved because of social recruiting (Source). These benefits often stem from employee’s referring their friends and family members to the job postings online, LinkedIn being the largest network that people use for social recruiting and applications.
With this rise in Social Recruiting and the numbers that show an increasing demand for this method,what is the future for Social Recruiting? How should companies successfully apply this to their current strategy?
The Industry Future:
According to SourceCon, for the success and strength of Social Recruiting to continue to flourish as it is right now, recruiters need to develop a relationship with the people applying to the jobs. This might require talking to the applicants during off business hours like the weekend and after work, since this is when they are most likely available if they are currently employed.
To help recruiters with this, our companies should create an easy to use social recruiting atmosphere, an example being more mobile recruiting functionalities. Creating a more accessible way for recruiters and applicants will help with the development of your company’s social recruiting needs and is a crucial investment to the company.
Another investment to look into besides mobile recruiting is Employee Advocacy programs. Employee Advocacy is the new social recruiting trend that is taking over when it comes to bringing in highly qualified candidates. To better understand what an Employee Advocacy Program is, Bambu gives an easy to follow definition. They are employees who:
Generate positive exposure and raise awareness for a brand through digital media or offline channels
Recommend a company’s products or services to a friend or family member
Represent the best interests of the company both internally and externally
Can help build employee ownership of the organization
Are experts on your product or service and can be a credible spokesperson for your company
So, why wouldn’t we want our employees to talk about how great your company culture is and your business’ success via social media? How the employees perceive and talk about your company via social has a great impact on how the outside word sees your company and ultimately who will want to apply. The best employee advocacy programs help bring in the right outside talent that is both qualified and fits with the employee culture. This takes a huge load off the recruiter, providing them with a pool of qualified candidates right at their fingertips, candidates who already want to work for your company since they have heard so many great things about you.
Interested in hearing more about Social Recruiting? Listen to our webinar for more key statistics and the steps you need to become Social Recruiting savvy.
Building an engaged team in your organization requires many different and constant efforts. Leaders checking in with their team and managing goals as the situations change. Team members reporting when they see a problem and collaborating with the people involved to find a solution. But even the process of recruiting additional team members through employee referral programs can be a point where you can foster those relationships and everyone’s engagement in the organization’s goals.
Just like employees are often the closest to see a problem, they’re often connected to people that can help with those problems; engaging them in the search can foster a stronger team bond. An employee may see firsthand the lack of a skilled marketing person or feel the strain of not enough resources on a project. But from their past jobs, experiences on their job, volunteer work, or from any part of their social web they may be connected to people that would be a great fit. Acknowledging the need for additional hands and soliciting team members on the skills, experience, and competencies needed to for those hands gives them a role in the process. This way, all team members have contributed to shaping the requirements.
Once the requirements are out there, make sure to engage all team members to help with the search. Certainly, the team members that provided feedback and helped shaped those requirements should be reached out to help fill this post. Depending on each person, this may mean forwarding the requisition’s link, thanking them for how their feedback shaped the requirements, or explicitly asking their help in finding people that fit the bill. Here the point is to keep that momentum of that collaboration going to the search. Their feedback can highlight not only the skills of that referral, but also how they fit into that position and can uniquely contribute to the team. This can not only speed the time to finding the best candidate, but also getting that team member up to speed because the team can clearly visualize how they would fit into the team. And of course, there’s also the oft touted benefit that referrals bring in team members that have and thus will work well together.
In 2017, Baby Boomers will be between 53 and 71 years old. Their waning numbers underline the need for good succession planning, especially since this segment likely represents the majority of the senior team. Yet 68% of firms have no formal succession plan leaving organizations at risk when baby boomers retire.
While succession planning is typically thought of as more of a learning and development discussion, more and more organizations are finding the need to tap recruiters’ skills for both external recruitment and internal redeployment of roles, finding talent that is often overlooked or neglected by traditional development methods.
Retirement Trends for 2017
According to Deltek’s 2016 A&E Clarity Report:
1 in 10 workers in the A&E industry fall into the Baby Boomer or Millennial categories.
The average turnover is around 13.3%. Departing Baby Boomers are likely contributing to this number but turnover is being driven primarily by voluntary departures.
As retirement rates accelerate for Baby Boomer-era partners who have historically bore the lion’s share of the Business Development burden, the responsibility is now spreading throughout the organization.
59% of firms have the same number of open positions as last year, while 1 in 4 firms reported more open positions and only 16% reported fewer. Large firms had the most unfilled jobs with more than 30% reporting a greater number of open spots than last year. Large firms are losing employees faster than their small and mid-sized counterparts, highlighting the need for better processes to engage and recruit employees.
70% of firms rank talent acquisition as one of their top three most expensive HR processes, with succession planning at the sixth most expensive.
Just 19% of companies surveyed said they have a repository that helps them source and acquire talent for projects.
68% of firms have no formal succession plan or the plan applies only to a select few people leaving organizations at risk when baby boomers retire or a key member of the firm leaves unexpectedly.
Prevent lack of leadership or critical talent
Identify talent gaps
Identify individuals with potential
Speed up development
Minimize leader turnover
Discourage talent hoarding
Goals of Succession Plans
Shortcomings of Traditional Succession Planning
Succession plans fail when you don’t have the right mindset, processes, and support to make them succeed. There are some things you should definitely think about to reduce the chances that your plans will not work out.
Don’t use the “set it and forget it” mentality. Let’s face it – things change and you need to make sure that you are able to account for those changes. People leave; availability changes; the company changes direction. You need to be thinking about these things when making plans and evaluate the plans regularly (at least once or twice a year) to make sure that you still have the best people identified as successors.
Have a backup plan. Again, things change and you don’t want to be caught in a lurch if there are unforeseen changes. It is a good idea to have other potential successors identified provide for flexibility in succession planning.
Develop your potential successors. Once you’ve identified potential successors, make sure you groom them so that they are ready if they need to step up. Under-developed leaders weaken the entire organization, erode workforce confidence, and impact job satisfaction. Make sure you have the resources in place to get your successors ready for the next step.
Include managers in the process. This will not only broaden your search, but it fosters engagement. Both managers and team members feel they have a voice and are represented in the company’s planning.
Consider your entire workforce. If you only consider HiPos, you may miss hidden talent. Don’t overlook talent that is new to the company. And make sure to consider all important criteria, not just past jobs held and skills/competencies.
Listen to what your employees say they want. This encourages engagement, positively impacts retention rates, improves job satisfaction, contributes to overall business success and demonstrates support for employees’ goals and aspirations.
Don’t keep your employees in the dark. Tell employees they are on a succession plan. This is a huge opportunity to impact retention in your highest performers, and this engagement can impact the bottom line. Also, keeping employees aware can motivate self-development.
Tapping Recruiter Skills for Finding Talent
Recruiters can be a great resource for identifying potential successors within your organization. They are already strong at sourcing for openings, and those same skills can come in handy for succession planning. Recruiters have multiple sources at their disposal, can ensure the job is the right fit, and can include external candidates.
Your recruiting team can also be a valuable resource in building career paths for employees, evaluating the quality of new hire, looking at HiPo employees to build interview questions, and sharing information with managers.
Another good reason for including recruiters is that sometimes (unfortunately) managers might not be the most reliable source for identifying potential successors. This happens when managers fail to develop their talent, either for their current role or future possibilities. Also, some managers will hold back employees who are ready for more because of the impact that would have on their team’s performance. Study after study identifies bad managers and lack of challenge/opportunity as the number one and number two reason people leave a job. This could lead to your best talent being deprived of growth opportunities and walking out the door.
From finding the best talent and the right fit for your company to looking internally at the possible employees who are best suited to take on a higher role. Understanding your company’s values and culture and having the right systems in place will help make the transition to the next role easier.
