ALUMRISE

 

Libby Sartain, Author of Brand for Talent

ALUMRISE is proud to count among its advisors HR guru and author Libby Sartain. Libby’s distinguished career includes serving as head of people for Southwest Airlines and as head of human resources for Yahoo! Inc. She recently entered a new lifestage as an author, speaker and advisor. Her most recent book, Brand for Talent, is making waves. In the related post below, she shares a perspective on the changing employee — a “consumer of work.”

Libby’s Guest Blog

In just the past couple of years the marketplace for talent has churned like never before. Organizations need for talent has intensified while the supply and demand of essential workers ebbs and flows.  The need to engage workers is strong, but the very environment in which we operate makes engagement more difficult.

The speed at which change occurs in today’s business environment has produced an era of volatility making it difficult to for any organization to craft a practical strategic workforce plan with a view much beyond the current budget cycle. At the same time, the market for talent has tightened, even in a down economy. There are segments of work where supply of workers cannot keep up with demand.

In the past, the solution for business has been to hire workers on the open market versus growing them from within.  And, when faced with business setbacks, the reaction is to reduce the workforce of workers who may be needed later when conditions improve.  Yet, as the need to control costs while maintaining optimum talent resources has escalated, this approach has proven to be unsustainable over the long term. Hiring from the outside is expensive and the workers with the right skill sets are rarely readily available.  Reductions in force nullify all investments made in the workers who are let go.

At the same, workers themselves have changed.  While the baby boomers may have switched organizations 4 or five times during their career, as compared to their parents who worked for 1 or 2 companies; the next generation is expected to change organizations every two years and may change careers several times during their work-lives.

Baby boomers will continue to work during past traditional retirement age, some on a part-time or contract basis, while working parents will also look for more flexible arrangements. And, technology allows many “creative class” workers to disengage from the traditional work environment in favor of work on their own terms.

Workers of all demographics look for more than just a “job”.  They look for a meaningful work experience that allows them to contribute what they do best, feel part of something significant, and enhances their career from a development and personal point of view.

Today’s worker views their professional skill set as a product for sale and is at the same time they are a consumer. The worker has expectations of what that skill set will bring in today’s talent marketplace. All the while, the worker is shopping for the right experience, or relationship with a place to work. 

Organizations need talent, but the need fluctuates. It is foreseeable that the same workers will come and go from the same organizations multiple times as both the workers and the organization’s needs evolve.

All of this is enabled by technology.  In the past, employers posted job descriptions and compliant candidates applied for open “jobs”.  Evolving now is an online community enhanced by Web 2.0 technology where the workers post their profiles and terms and conditions for working to be found by talent scouts scouring blogs, websites and social networks. 

The relationship between employers and potential workers could one day look more like eBay versus Monster.  Workers will be in the drivers seat and might post their requirements while employers will hire workers for time periods where they need the work.

All of this change will pose many challenges for employers. How will organizations keep core workers engaged and on board for the long term? What kind of systems and management infrastructure will be required to manage a new kind of workforce? How can an employer brand itself as an employer of choice for this new kind of worker? How can an employer stay relevant to all the segments of talent it needs to keep and to attract?

Strategic workforce management will involve a sourcing strategy that will look more like a consumer marketing strategy. Employers will need a targeted branded marking campaign aimed at each critical talent segment through multi-channel marketing.

Now is the time for employers to get ready for this new consumer of work by establishing a branding strategy for critical talent segments. Now is the time for workers to establish their own brands as they look for the experience that meets their needs.

Since joining Twitter, I’ve been getting into the free-flowing online “jobs” discussion. I recently followed an interesting thread about whether the new workforce generation will move to a model of 40 jobs in 40 years.

Whether or not a Gen Y professional will actually racks up that number of jobs isn’t the key point I took away (though a greater majority than we think may end up falling into the serial category) – what was more interesting to me was the idea that it was 40 “jobs” as the qualifier.

As ALUMRISE readies to move beyond its technology launch into go-loud (yes, we’re officially moved into our new office in Plano, we’re inking contracts, re-doing the site for user input, readying press releases), we’ve also been honing in on what makes us unique so that we better communicate that to new introductions and existing members like you.

Why I found the discussion above particularly interesting? It’s because our team here at ALUMRISE believes our mission is creating a unique space that supports jobs of all shapes and sizes – connecting and achieving better fit for professionals to employers of all shapes and sizes. The traditional career job hasn’t gone away, it’s still very important as a stabilization center for entities - but it’s role in each of our individual lives, may well have permanently shrunk. A confluence of technology, globalization, shifting employer practices and a renewed focus on broadly relevant cross-industry skills, means we’re going to be about gigs & fits.

What does that mean? It means I believe we may well be moving to a world in which we well may well have 40 gigs in 40 years.

Some gigs will continue as part of each day or week – long term gigs. (p.s.: I think parenting or elder care fall into this category – they will always take a certain part of our day and should be acknowledged as such). Others will be short term – volunteering; internships or returnships; mentoring; or coaching. Some will be fixed (3 years, full time). Others more lenient (such as: when I need you, for the next 5 months at $120/hour).

At ALUMRISE we believe our task as professionals will be to figure out two things:

• Our income needs
• The total available time or capacity we have to generate it

We should each plan to among these variables to get to right gigs & fits equation - including our unpaid gigs! And as employers of professionals, we should recognize that this is an emerging factor in the equation for where a professional will want to work.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, I hope you consider this a point of debate - do share your comments or reactions.

Join the marketplace! http://www.alumrise.com/alumsignup.aspx

Ps: Stay in touch with us by signing up for our RSS feed and newsletter so we can share some new tools ALUMRISE is developing as part of the launch of our social presence (we can’t help it, we’re watchers and analyzers … we take our time to trigger things like a Facebook fan presence). Our hope is that new tools we introduce will help you make fit happen, whether you’re a professional seeking a job of any shape or size, or an employer figuring out how to find the best fitting professional for your work need.