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.

Most days, when I wake up, I don’t have time to take a pulse. Life’s too busy.

But this Thanksgiving week is deliberately slow.

When the year gets quieter, I turn to literature both to help me move forward and to allow me to reflect on the past and ideas that have been fermenting throughout the year. For most of this morning, a certain quote has been stuck in my head:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.

Dickens spent most of his life serializing the plight of the new industrial age. What children, what bourgeoisie, what farm workers were affected by the shift to factories and assembly lines?

This holiday season, we will have every opportunity to reflect on new shifts, seismic shifts, global shifts, in how we work and live.

Let’s make this quiet time, this holiday time, the best of times, by illuminating new solutions, not despairing the demise of the old.

How can we make 2009 the best of times?

When ALUMRISE was founded more than two years ago, we could have not imagined the day we announced the launch of our full application to the marketplace, would coincide with the day that millions across the U.S. would vote in a highly charged, mixed atmosphere of great hope, great uncertainty and great pressure.
 
Do you, too, believe there are big changes brewing in how each of us will work and live?
 
As today’s U.S. election comes and goes, the real truth is that no matter which candidate you selected or supported, you should also consider a new vote - a vote for yourself. 
 
Consider standing up with us for your earned rights: to be a productive contributor, hooked in and hooked up to opportunity, income and influence - whatever your circumstance, location, choices, or work life stage and whatever the macro shifts of the global economy.
 
Together, we can re-enfranchise millions into the workforce, enabling a new source of productivity and growth for the global economy. The person dubbed an ALUMRISER is someone with real skills to offer, and their alum-sourcing is as valid a business/buyer strategy & solution today as off-shoring or downsizing. 
 
Our joining members, both buyers and ALUMRISERS, will help shape the path of how we work and live. You’ll be hearing more about ALUMRISE’s exciting vision for how to do that on our blog, and via the introduction of new features within our marketplace. 
 
If you are not an ALUMRISER today, tomorrow you might be. (With a shout out to those hunting for new opportunities on the streets of New York, or other towns and cities around the country and the world). So might your parents, children, spouse or partner, relatives or friends. Each of us can reach out and touch an ALUMRISER.
 
When you get out to vote - please also remember to vote for yourself.
 
It’s time to sign up.
 
Posted Nov 4, 2008 - By ALUMRISE Team