The Ongoing War for Talent

As the United States approaches full employment, with the millennial generation a major component of the current workforce, the war for talent continues. In this issue of Astronology®, we will explore a few factors impacting the war for talent, as well as a few suggestions to help bolster an organization’s efforts at attracting, retaining, and growing talent in a tight labor market.

There are various factors to consider with respect to why talent moves. With an increasing full employment market developing here in the United States, employees are finding it easier to leave their current employers for work elsewhere. George Bradt suggests in an article with Forbes online that when employees feel that they are underemployed, or even underperforming, they will leave before they are fired. Disappointing decisions with respect to restructuring and cutbacks in benefits also have played a role in employees leaving. Bradt highlights that the millennial generation in particular has been exposed to such disappointing decisions and, as a result, are more inclined to search for new opportunities. A third, growing factor to consider is the burgeoning self-employment movement including the gig economy.

To combat the concerns raised by these factors, the following are suggested:

• Competitive Pay: Ensuring you are paying within the market for specific jobs will make it easier to attract and retain talent.
• Job Perks: Such perks do not have to be elaborate. Designing a flexible schedule option has become a popular perk. In a survey conducted of millennials by MetLife, 43% of respondents said they’d switch jobs if it gave them more flexible hours.
• Meaningful Story: 60% of the millennials surveyed by MetLife also mentioned that “a sense of purpose” was part of the reason they work for their current employers. To attract talent that are seeking a sense of purpose, organizations will have to craft a more meaningful story of themselves.
• Encourage Innovation: To further appease talent desiring to work with a sense of purpose, creating a culture of innovation will give employees room to grow and give meaningful contributions.
• While Hiring, Be Inclusive: Instead of just involving a specific department when hiring, include other organizational members in the hiring of new staff. These employees can help vet and close candidates. This process also sends the message to potential employees that they will be exposed to a network of colleagues in various departments when working at the organization.

Do you have any further suggestions to include on our list? Please share your thoughts with us in our comments section below!

H-1B, ARRA, and TARP

I was forwarded a job description for a position at Capital One by someone I know. They didn't want to know anything about the job or my advice on taking it or anything to that effect; they wanted to know what this note meant at the bottom of the posting:

As a recipient of TARP funding and under ARRA regulations, Capital One will not sponsor new H-1B petitions or transfer existing H1B Visas.

I was curious myself. So I did some research. The Washington D.C. Employment Law Update laid it out in March:

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that employers receiving funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or under section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act (covered funds) must meet additional requirements before hiring foreign nationals to work in the H-1B specialty occupation category.

These new requirements were established by the Employ American Workers Act (EAWA), a component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) – otherwise known as the stimulus package – signed into law on February 17, 2009. Under EAWA, companies receiving covered funds must guarantee that they will not displace citizen employees

And if you still want to hire that person, you need to answer some more questions that basically guarantee the government that you didn't displace a US worker for this job.

This makes sense in practice (with all the taxpayer money going to the banks, you want them to hire US tax-paying citizens), but I was surprised (probably wrongly so) to hear it was being done in this manner, with disclosures like that in postings.

Here are some more details on this from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services.

Filling The Gap, Job Descriptions, Obama's Healthcare Plan, etc.

We're reading all the articles so you don't have to...

-BizTimes talks about Human Resources filling the gap with interim executives

-Vault has job descriptions. They're not as good as the ones we do at Astron Solutions.

-WebProNews says that Yahoo! is putting a new spin on the recruiting process by launching pay-per-candidate for their Yahoo! HotJobs

-Workforce Management talks about how an economic crisis is creating an opportunity for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). "As companies slash payrolls and tighten their belts in other ways that squeeze employees, the association is trying to make itself indispensable to HR professionals."

-Lastly, the Chicago Sun-Times talks about President Barack Obama being pressed on healthcare during his ABC special by an Human Resources executive:

One questioner -- Marisa Milton, vice president of health care policy for the HR Policy Association, a public policy advocate for human resource executives -- said that "other industrialized nations provide coverage for all their residents" with "high quality care" without spending more money.

"A lot of those countries employ a different system than we do," the president said. "Almost all of them have what would be considered a single-payer system in which the government operates what is essentially a Medicare for all."

The president said he didn't think it wise to attempt to "completely change our system root and branch" since health care is one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It "would be hugely disruptive," he said, arguing that citizens would be forced to change their doctors and insurance plans "in a way I'm not prepared to go."

End-of-life issues were raised as well; right now it is estimated that nearly 30 percent of Medicare's annual $327 billion budget is spent on patients in their final year of life.

Jane Sturm told the story of her nearly 100-year-old mother, who was originally denied a pacemaker because of her age. She eventually got one, but only after seeking out another doctor.

"Outside the medical criteria," Sturm asked, "is there a consideration that can be given for a certain spirit & and quality of life?"

"I don't think that we can make judgments based on peoples' spirit," Obama said. "That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people.

"We're not going to solve every single one of these very difficult decisions at end of life," he said. "Ultimately that's going to be between physicians and patients."

Banning Social Networking?

If you're thinking of banning social networking from your company, you may be making a very costly mistake according to employee evolution: click here

If you're thinking of skipping those MBA recruiting sessions, you should read this Wall Street Journal article about more and more people who are doing just that: click here

If you're getting ready to retire, you should read this Journal article about planning your exit strategy: click here

If you're worried about whether you need to have a required lunch break, read this Q&A from the Human Resource blog: click here

If you're wondering the best way to leveraging talent into your company's competitive advantage, read this book review from the HR Practitioner: click here

If you're trying to figure out what the role of Human Resources should be in employer branding, read this PUREcommunications article: click here

And if you're looking for an HR job, who are we to ignore social networking after we talked about it's importance, so here's a LiveJournal entry on a website for HR jobs: click here

Declining Value of a College Degree

Think that your $160,000 private school degree is setting you light years apart from others? Think again says the Washington Post who say that the value of a college degree is declining: click here

From the RecruitingCenter Blog, an entry stating that all we really have is our reputation: click here

Eccentric Employment is a site worth checking out if you're looking to get away from the boring 9-5 (including taking care of a monkey): click here

Word from TalentSpring that and amazing 39% of employees wanted to quit if their employers blocked Facebook: click here

Lastly, the Recruiter Guy gives a list of 100 Niche Job boards: click here

More recruiting articles...

We're not ready to call it a weekend just yet...

Rosie left us a comment on the last post with two great website links: click here and here

Work blogging has everything from cyberslacking to an upgrade for the Steelworker union: click here

Recruiting Nevada gives readers a little bit of everything as well from resumes on job boards to using Google: click here

The Windmill has alternatives to salary negotiations and advice on how to get hired by the Best companies: click here

How about some tips from/for the top recruiters? click here

And, lastly (and most importantly) go to our main website at Astron Solutions and find out more about what we do and who we are: http://astronsolutions.com

Bloggerific Recruiting

Taking you around the world of HR on this Summer Friday with some great Human Resources articles/blogs, mostly having to do with recruiting (with some props given to Jim Stroud of the Recruiters Lounge--click here--where we found a bunch of these)

First we start with "Invested, innovative, brilliant: Improving the recruiting experience" blog with articles on Gen Y and Facebook among other topics: click here

Riveting Rosie also has some ideas on reaching Gen Y'ers: click here

Personnel Today has an article on Video Game developers bring in HR to help with recruiting problems: click here

The Boston Herald has new on the in demand job perk that is helping to ease commuting pains and recruit more employees: click here

HR Files has a little bit of everything: click here

Recruiting Trends does also: click here

Lastly, ESPN.com has five new trends in recruiting...for top high school football candidates: click here

Have a great weekend and we'll be giving you more and more HR recruiting resources real soon

What I’m Hearing…Alumni Networks

Say the phrase “alumni network” and most people are bound to think about college. However, more and more organizations are using alumni networks to their strategic advantage. They consider “alumni,” or groups of employees who used to work for the organization, a key source of potential future talent. That potential talent would be either the former employees themselves or people those individuals know.

The other night, I passed Cipriani 42nd Street here in Manhattan. They were hosting a special event for PriceWaterhouse Coopers and its alumni network. Cipriani doesn’t come cheap, so PWC must consider the expense of catering worthwhile in terms of recruitment and retention ROI.

The event got me thinking – is it possible to go home again? If an organization is good, why do people leave? There are, of course, situations like retirement, spouses’ relocation, personal or family’s health, etc. that wouldn’t close the door on returning to a former employer. These situations aside, however, can a new relationship be as good as or better than the first time? I have seen a few instances where this is true, so the risk of spending countless dollars courting alumni must be outweighed by the potential reward. Maybe with their 70s hit “Reunited,” Peaches and Herb had it right after all.