Despite Layoffs and Hiring Freezes, The War for Talent is Not Over

According to a renowned study conducted by McKinsey Co., the most important corporate resource will be talent. It's also the resource in shortest supply, most of all in tough economic times. Are you ready to fight for your fair share?

An underlying fact in the American workplace is the shortage of qualified workers available to fill jobs. The principal business challenge of recruiting, retraining and inspiring talent continues, even in a slumping economy - just like in good times - as employees retire, quit, are terminated, find a new job, enroll in school or move away.

With layoffs the remedy for economic ills, it is often mistakenly thought that hiring is linked to economic growth. Statistically; however, economic growth makes up only about 5% of overall hiring actions in the U.S. Turnover is the overwhelming and primary reason for the majority of a company’s need to hire.

When headcount is monitored closely and managers must “made do” with less people, poorer performers are less tolerated and are “performance managed” out. As such, managers look for top performers from outside the company to ensure their teams are able to perform at high levels in challenging times.

At the same time, in a weak economy, top performers seek out opportunities they perceive as recession-proof causing employers to compete against rival employers.

Under a hiring freeze, overall headcount is targeted to remain at an established number. In these circumstances, when an employee leaves, managers still must make “backfill” hires to cover key positions.

After a period of reactionary cutting and freezing, hiring activity will return to a level of normalcy, business as usual. Then, employers will find that that they are lacking talent in a competitive job market—the market for “employed” top performers.

During times like this, employers will be flooded with candidates from which to choose. A nice change…or not? Hiring managers are well advised to proceed with caution as you contemplate hiring from the pool of available “active” candidates—recently available due to layoffs. Likely, these candidates are “first wavers” who in a robust economy “flew under the radar” and now find themselves “redundant” in an economy that requires top talent to produce results. This doesn’t mean all unemployed or job-seeking candidates are bad or mediocre, but for many, it is indeed the fact.

As the numbers of candidates on the market increases it becomes increasingly difficult to “separate the wheat from the chaffe” and choose the people that are of high quality from a group of mixed quality.

Does it make sense then to continue to employ the services of a search firm to find talent for your organization? Consider that a professional executive search firm is in constant contact with candidates and hiring managers across the segments in which they specialize. This “constant contact” is with “passive” candidates who, when facing economic instability, are more likely to entertain a new opportunity if presented by a known, trusted advisor.

The bottom line…great people are hard to find in even the best “employer's market” circumstances, and only great people are a good investment when resources are dear. An investment in a search fee pays dividends when a new employee not only joins your organization, but contributes with the high level of skill, talent and character commonly found with employed, “passive” candidates who “fly under your radar.”

Direct Search Alliance is exclusively a direct recruiting firm, targeting passive candidates (we do not use ads or postings of any kind; we source top talent directly by researching the market and reaching out to working processionals to develop relationships and share connections). We are the Staffing Industry’s best resource, with multidisciplinary depth and breadth across Commercial and Professional segments, to source a top performer for your organization in 2009.

Season's Greetings

To our Client and Candidate Business Partners and Friends, all of us at Direct Search Alliance extend our sincerest best wishes for a happy Holiday Season.

May the New Year bring optimism, innovation, the coming together of talented people, support from colleagues and leadership, aspiration to overcome difficulties, and the power to make the best of trade and industry in the marketplaces we serve.

Teamwork brings everything together.

2009, a time to hope for peace and think green. A time to step it up in the face of adversity. A time to renew the spirit of service and go to work.

Employment Situation

It's official: the U.S. economy is in a recession. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research announced last week that, after six consecutive years of healthy growth, the U.S. economy peaked in December 2007. "The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in November 2001 and the beginning of a recession," the committee stated.

Employment is one of the primary measures NBER uses in tracking the economy, and it noted that U.S. payrolls peaked last December and have declined every month since.

Historically, temporary and contract employment drops precipitously during recessions. In the last recession, for example, staffing employment began to fall several months before the recession actually began. Over the course of a year and a half, the industry lost 29% of its jobs, according to the quarterly ASA staffing employment and sales survey. In year-to-year comparisons of employment data during that period, there were four consecutive quarters of double-digit rates of decline.

So far in this recession, the pattern has been different. Unlike with previous recessions, staffing employment remained relatively unchanged for 10 months. For example, staffing employment declined only 2.5% from the first quarter through the third quarter of this year, according to the ASA employment and sales survey. And the ASA Staffing Index, which measures changes in temporary and contact employment, had been flat for most of the year, until it started showing sustained weekly declines in late September.

The November employment situation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that precipitous declines in employment may now be upon the staffing industry. How long those sharp declines persist will depend in part on how long the recession lasts.

This recession is already longer than the last one. The 2001 recession lasted eight months. The U.S. economy, according to NBER, is currently in the 12th month of contraction. Until now, there had been 10 recessions since World War II, and they lasted an average of 10 months each. The longest recession in that period, in 1981–82, lasted 16 months. Even if this recession becomes the longest since World War II, it is probably more than half over. Many economists predict that the economy will begin to pull out of this downturn by the middle of next year.

Steve Berchem
Staffing Week December 8, 2008
American Staffing Association

Market Conditions Change - Good Advice Doesn't

SPECIAL REPORT

'Greatest economic challenge'
Obama sets sights on economy - vows to confront global financial crisis
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President-elect Barack Obama said Friday that the United States is "facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime."

The economy ranked as the top concern among voters. The issue...Jobs.

Layoffs and hiring freezes announced by Companies in the broader economy can ripple throughout the Staffing Industry by causing management to cut back on their costs by "making do" with less staff, and this can make it harder for these companies to maintain market share, fueling the ongoing decline in revenues and profits.

Given the weak labor market, only the most skilled, talented and motivated employees will uncover and leverage opportunities to contribute. The economy may be weak, but it is not without prospects.

Staffing Industry employers might be well served by taking a hard look at the capabilities of their employees and how they are deployed. To preserve a place in the market and prosper for longer term benefit, only the best and brightest should be "on the team," so to speak, in revenue generating assignments.

Tolerating mediocrity is risky. Finding talent is difficult with the unemployment rate increasing. As the numbers of candidates on the market increases it becomes increasingly difficult to “separate the wheat from the chaff” and choose the people that are of high quality from a group of mixed quality.

Does it make sense then to continue to employ the services of a search firm to find talent for your organization? Consider that a professional executive search firm is in constant contact with candidates. This “constant contact” is with “passive” candidates who, when facing economic instability, are more likely to entertain a new opportunity if presented by a known, trusted advisor.

The bottom line, great people are hard to find in even the best “employer's market” circumstances, and only great people are a good investment when resources are dear. An investment in a search fee pays dividends when a new employee not only joins your organization, but contributes with the high level of skill, talent and character commonly found with employed “passive” candidates who “fly under your radar.”

We can help make an investment in finding and hiring talent produce sustaining, material results. Recognizing that in times like these, cost is a factor, we are offering cost-savings options to initiate the search for top talent.

1. Stretch Your Budget with Extended Payment Terms
Have the option to make that critical hire in the near-term and spread payment over time. This "layaway" plan allows you to manage the impact on your budget and begin to realize a return on the investment in talent before making the full investment. Pay in 3-equal payments after the start date: 10-days, 45-days and 90-days.
Extended payment terms do not apply with any other discounts.

2. Take advantage of our Search Sale
Make a hire and receive 25% off the search fee. Even in a challenging economic market, customer-facing, revenue-generating and leadership talent are essential. If you have to make that one great hire, make it at a deep discount.
25% off applies only with standard payment terms of net 10-days.

3. Choose the Best of Both Time & Money
Focus on your core business and let us find you a top performer. Take a 15% discount off the search fee, pay only half the fee 10-days after the start and hold on to the balance for 60-days. Manage your cash and benefit from revenue-producing productivity.

Direct Search Alliance is a Search and Talent Consultancy specializing in the Staffing, Professional Services and Outsourcing Industries. I invite you to visit our website and blog to learn more about our company. Click the links below to download online brochures.

The upside of recession

Instead of cutting back and cowering, why not see it as an opportunity?

COMMENTARY
By G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Vitón
BusinessWeek.com
Tues., March. 18, 2008

Pop quiz, hot shot: What do MTV, Trader Joe's, and the iPod have in common? Yes, of course, they're all now ubiquitous and make our lives much more agreeable.

But to us, the most interesting thing about all three is that these great brands were born during recessions. (Trader Joe's: 1958; MTV: 1981; iPod: 2001, if you are scoring at home.)

And therein lies a point everyone seems to be forgetting in the midst of the current economic slowdown. If handled correctly, a downturn can be a good thing for your company. It can give you the opportunity — and the funds — to innovate and get a substantial leg up on the competition. But only if handled correctly.

It is never going to happen if your company — or your department — goes into the recession saying, "We have to tighten our proverbial belts; let's cut spending 22.73% across the board." People are going to be demoralized. And even worse, that is what most firms are doing, and you are never going to gain a competitive edge doing the same thing as everyone else.

A catalyst for innovation
Cutting across the board is the coward's way of dealing with a downturn. It assures that no one is going to yell — how could anyone possibly object to sharing the pain equally — and it gives the timid a built-in excuse to fail. ("Gee, I know no one liked our new product, but they slashed our budget 22.73% right before launch, so, it wasn't my fault.")

But suppose you use the recession not as an excuse or a reason for hiding under your desk but rather as a catalyst for innovation? Instead of cutting everything by 22.73%, why not see the downturn as a chance to whack 90% (or the whole darn thing) out of stuff that isn't working well?

Cutting off funding to your laggards would free up a lot of money to back the one, or possibly two, big ideas you have been working on, ideas that have a chance to become breakthrough brands. If you want to be less aggressive, you could place more resources behind the existing ideas/programs/products that are already working well.

A two-pronged approach
Two key assumptions are necessary to make this possible: First, you should already have in a place a solid strategy, one that has identified your company's competitive advantage, so you know where to place your relatively big bets. If you don't have a sound strategy, you are at a huge disadvantage. And two, it assumes you have the intestinal fortitude to react to the recession in a way that is not like everyone else.

It is never going to happen if your company — or your department — goes into the recession saying, "We have to tighten our proverbial belts; let's cut spending 22.73% across the board." People are going to be demoralized. And even worse, that is what most firms are doing, and you are never going to gain a competitive edge doing the same thing as everyone else.

If you are the chief executive officer, you can make this gutsy call on your own — assuming, of course, you get the board to go along. The rest of us probably need to take a two-pronged approach.

First, when the word comes down from on high that you need to belt-tighten, go through the usual drill. Explain you probably can fly everyone in for a meeting three times a year instead of four, and why you can get by with 12 people in the department as opposed to 13.

Increase advertising while others cut back
But then go to your boss, and say, "Instead of dealing with the need to cut like everyone else, why don't we use these hard times as an opportunity," and then outline how you plan to create an MTV, a Trader Joe's, or an iPod of your own, complete with an aggressive launch timeline to ensure it is firmly established in the marketplace when the recession ends.

As Harvard Business School professor John A. Quelch noted recently, "It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times."

Time to attack
You can also point out that what you are advocating will leave your company perfectly positioned once the recession ends. While your competition is withdrawing, you will be charging ahead, taking market share. Maybe neither argument will carry the day. But if it does nothing else, this kind of innovative thinking gives the boss another reason to keep you around, no small thing when the phrase "reducing headcount" is in the air.

Recessions by definition are temporary. Great companies and great executives don't abandon their growth strategies in light of temporary setbacks. They attack aggressively, while everyone else is pulling back.

G. Michael Maddock is founding partner, and Raphael Louis Vitón is president, of Maddock Douglas, a company that invents, brands, and markets products "for companies driven by innovation."

Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

Barack Obama Becomes the 44th U.S. President

The economy ranked as the top concern among voters who cast their ballot for Barack Obama, elected President Tuesday night.

The issue...Jobs.

A total of $100,032,604 was spent to broadcast 52 ads related to the presidential campaign on the issue of jobs from April 3 to Oct. 27, 2008, according to statistics compiled by Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising expenditures.

Layoffs and hiring freezes announced by Companies in the broader economy can ripple throughout the Staffing Industry by causing management to cut back on their costs by "making do" with less staff, and this can make it harder for these companies to maintain market share, fueling the ongoing decline in revenues and profits.

Given the weak labor market, only the most skilled, talented and motivated employees will uncover, discover and leverage opportunities to contribute. The economy may be weak, but it is not without prospects.

Staffing Industry employers might be well served by taking a hard look at the capabilities of their employees and how they are deployed. To preserve a place in the market and prosper for longer term benefit, only the best and brightest should be "on the team," so to speak, in revenue generating assignments. Tolerating mediocrity is risky. Finding talent is difficult with the unemployment rate increasing.

We can help make an investment in finding and hiring talent produce sustaining, material results.

Direct Search Alliance was established by Staffing Industry leaders to provide an alliance between America's best employers and executive, management and professional people already successful in their role and area of specialization.

Our organizational mission is to represent, serve and inspire talented individuals to nurture and propel business performance.

Selling in a Down Economy

You may need hunters rather than farmers.

Here are a few thoughts for growing your sales organization in these challenging times.

First, stop accepting excuses for lack of performance… even if they have a basis in truth. It’s always easier for someone to blame the economy, the competition, the lousy sales leads, or even their own company than it is to accept responsibility. The fact is that successful people find a way to succeed regardless of the circumstances. Hardly anybody actually likes to prospect, but hungry successful salespeople who need to generate revenue will become prospecting animals. Are your salespeople making enough calls to generate the business you need? Are they doing everything possible to succeed?

In better times, many salespeople focused on telling prospects about the benefits and advantages of their company’s products or services. They sent lots of proposals and followed up consistently. Business was good. But as soon as the economy slowed, this approach stopped working. The reaction was often to cut price and to add extra value (often by throwing in extra functionality) in an attempt to close deals. Margins eroded and the sales pipeline slowed to a trickle. The very salespeople who seemed like Supermen in the good times now act like kryptonite is in their office.

There are two basic questions that need to be addressed in order to turn around a languishing sales organization.

First: do you have the right people?

Many successful “salespeople” really were more like account managers who farmed their existing client base very effectively. These “farmers” are patient and will say, “Wait until the economy turns around”, or “Nobody is buying right now”. Salespeople who are excellent account managers are not necessarily willing and able to prospect for new business (i.e. become hunters). Find those who have both a strong desire for success and a commitment to do whatever it takes, then get rid of the rest!

The second question is: do your people have the abilities and skills to compete in a tough selling environment?

Many sales organizations, especially those selling technology during the boom times, failed to develop the selling skills of their sales team. Some salespeople were functioning too much as order takers and simply didn’t need to prospect in order to meet their targets. Marketing generated an abundance of leads so the biggest challenge salespeople faced was simply following-up on what was handed to them. Everything was wonderful until the economy took a turn for the worse. Many formerly successful salespeople simply don’t have the skills to compete in this new economy, or they aren’t willing to do what it will take to be successful.

In order to answer the above two questions, consider evaluating your existing organization using some sort of objective assessment methodology. Like any good change process, establishing the current condition is essential in determining an action plan for future change. Knowing strengths and weaknesses of the sales team allows for an action plan to be developed. It is entirely possible that some on the team simply will not be effective in this new economy, so making personnel changes may be the first step. If training is needed, it should be targeted to address those issues that will have the greatest return on investment. For instance, if salespeople are too easily cutting price, then some intensive focus on a good budget step would be prudent. If they send out lots of proposals but don’t close enough, developing their questioning skills and closing strategies would be appropriate.

Additionally, a growing organization should look to systematize the selling process. Determine your best sales practices and then make sure the whole organization consistently follows those practices. What are the best ways to find new leads? How do they get qualified quickly? How are budgets determined? When and how will the decision be made? Answer all these questions BEFORE you spend a fortune on software. Contact management, sales automation, and customer relationship management (CRM) software is abundant and readily available for virtually any size sales organization. Unfortunately, software alone will not fix a weak sales process or a weak sales team.

Lastly, take the time and energy to hire salespeople who not only can sell, but WILL SELL for your company. When looking at those impressive resumes be sure to ask lots of questions about how much prospecting the salesperson did in the past. Many top salespeople inherited accounts and grew an existing base. If that’s what you’re offering them, then they may be a good fit, but don’t expect this former superstar to necessarily cold call and prospect consistently for new business. Again, use good evaluation tools to screen for those attributes that will insure success in your organization. Never hire based strictly upon your “gut”.

Put it all together and you’ll probably find that selling in a down economy really isn’t much different than selling in a good economy. Hire the right people, provide them with great training and tools, and don’t accept excuses. So when the economy picks up again don’t forget the fundamentals. Winners succeed because they are prepared more than others and are committed to be the best. Good Selling!

-- by Kevin Hallenbeck

Bringing it Back

Intuitively, you know that something must be done to offset the steep decline in revenues as demand lessens for new or interim staff. You want to do something, but are confounded as to what to do - it seems insurmountable and that any one thing won't be enough to turn circumstances around. Thus far, staring at the computer screen hasn't worked. Talking about how bad is the economy hasn't either, although it makes for a good excuse and makes one feel nervously better.

Confidence comes with action and it is an amalgamation of doing basic "right things" that work together to make business come around.

INTERVIEWS
it seems silly to interview when you have more candidates than jobs, but continue to do so in numbers and dig in a little deeper--where has the candidate interviewed, with whom have they been out on assignment, what employers have contacted them, who do they report to and to whom does their boss report? These are names, names that might be hiring. In times like these when the instance of hiring or needing supplemental staffing is less common, you must increase the number of chances to sell by increasing the number of potential hiring authorities on your prospect list. When you use interviewing as a means to gather market intelligence, you can, at the same time, cross reference the name to the profile of the candidate which can be used to target your marketing efforts on a go forward basis.

Going back to the files and pulling old applications is a target-rich source for names that were passed over when business was too brisk to pay attention to the details.

REFERENCES
Everyone hates to check references - they seem like an annoying obstacle to placing a candidate. But in reality, every professional reference is not only another name, but a person you have a good reason to engage in conversation. Grab up a pile of unchecked references and get busy dialing. Your "connection" ratio will increase multi fold when you are calling about a professional reference. It is an easy transition to turn a call like this to the business of learning about the individual, their organization's needs and prospective opportunities. Go back through old checked references, and voila...more names.

MARKETING CANDIDATES
Once you have a long list of prospective hiring authority names, cross referenced with the kinds of skill classifications that they hire, you can market great candidates on a more macro, but targeted, basis and reach a large number of prospective clients. Do a thorough job writing a profile of the candidate to market and what they can offer an employer, along with a compelling and persuasive overview of your experience and your firm's area of specialization. You will find that if you "hit the bulls eye," you will generate a business opportunity and if you present yourself in the right light, you might generate interest in your services for an alternate opportunity.

The adage - "It is a numbers game" has never been more true. The survivors of this downturn are the individuals and companies who leverage high volumes of data with high levels of activity to touch prospects on a frequency that "makes your own luck" by increasing your chances of being "in the right place and the right time."

Talent Surplus – Not!

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that year-to-date totals of layoff events (12,542) and related initial claims (1,274,765) in 2008 were the highest January-August totals since 2003. Over the year, jobless rates were up in 47 states and the District of Columbia and down in 3 states. The national unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent in August, 1.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

Does this mean that the scarcity of talent has become less and talent is readily available for the few openings employers have come up in this uncertain economy? To answer this question, first answer these questions:

1. With declining revenues and fewer opportunities on the horizon, is every employee’s contribution even more important to the success of your business and to justifying the role in your organization?

2. If you have made reductions in staff, have you considered performance as one of the deciding factors respecting who to let go, and released the lesser producing employees first?

If you answered yes to either question, take pause as you contemplate hiring from the pool of available “active” candidates. Likely, these candidates are “first wavers” who in a robust economy “flew under the radar” and now find themselves “redundant” in an economy that requires top talent to produce results. This doesn’t mean all unemployed or job-seeking candidates are bad or mediocre, but for many it is indeed the fact.

As the numbers of candidates on the market increases it becomes increasingly difficult to “separate the wheat from the chaffe” and choose the people that are of high quality from a group of mixed quality.

Does it make sense then to continue to employ the services of a search firm to find talent for your organization? Consider that a professional executive search firm is in constant contact with candidates and hiring managers across the segments in which they specialize. This “constant contact” is with “passive” candidates who, when facing economic instability, are more likely to entertain a new opportunity if presented by a known, trusted advisor.

The bottom line…great people are hard to find in even the best “employer's market” circumstances, and only great people are a good investment when resources are dear. An investment in a search fee pays dividends when a new employee not only joins your organization, but contributes with the high level of skill, talent and character commonly found with employed “passive” candidates who “fly under your radar.”

STAFFING INDUSTRY ANALYSTS BRIEFING

Posted On: 9/5/2008 http://www.staffingindustry.com

BRIEFING - Economic indicators August 2008
ECRI weekly leading index contracts
Manufacturing and nonmanufacturing indices running flat
Four-week jobless claims up 11.5% from July
Craig Johnson

Event
August was a tough month for economic indicators. Several indicators fell and others posted little change.

Background and analysis
The Economic Cycle Research Institute's weekly leading index contracted in August. The index declined 11.7% in the week ended Aug. 29 versus the year earlier. This is 360 basis points worse than the comparable number of a month ago.

In the U.S. manufacturing sector, economic activity in August was about the same as in July, the Institute for Supply Management reported. The ISM's key purchasing managers' index for manufacturing registered 49.9 in August, nearly unchanged from 50.0 in July. Readings of more than 50 indicate expansion.

"This continues the 2008 trend toward negligible growth or contraction each month, but ultimately results in very little overall change in the sector," said Norbert Ore, chair of the ISM's manufacturing business survey committee.

Economic activity in the U.S. service sector edged up slightly in August after contracting in July, according to the ISM's nonmanufacturing index. The index rose to 50.6 in August from 49.5 in July with readings above 50 indicate expansion.

The employment portion of the nonmanufacturing index fell to a reading of 45.4 in August from 47.1 in the previous month.

In the week ended Aug. 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 444,000, the U.S. Department of Labor reported. The four-week moving average was 438,000, an increase of 45,000, or 11.5% from the previous month's average 393,000. A Department of Labor program to locate those who may be eligible for jobless benefits may have contributed to the recent rise in these numbers.

Meanwhile, The Conference Board's U.S. leading index of economic indicators fell 0.7% in July, its most recent reading. It now stands at 101.2. The organization said weaknesses among leading indicators continue to be widespread.

However, one bright spot in the economic picture was the upward revision of second-quarter growth in real gross domestic product by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Aug. 28. Real GDP grew at a rate of 3.3% in the second quarter, according to the revision, up from an earlier estimate of only 1.9%.

Staffing Industry Analysts' perspective
Overall, there appeared little good forward-looking news from the economic indicators in August.

Both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing indices are at about 50, meaning flat performance, neither growth nor contraction. Jobless claims rose 11.5% from the previous month, but it's unclear whether the increase is real or simply reflects a new program on the part of the Department of Labor to aggressively seek applications for unemployment claims by locating those unemployed. More troubling is the consistently negative character of two forward-looking indices, the ECRI and the leading index.

It is Not the Market, it is Your Competitors

With demand for staffing, executive search and services/solutions in decline, growth cannot be achieved by growing "on pace with the market." To retain market share and grow, even in a difficult economy, taking business from competitors is essential. To sell effectively against competitors, you may find the following article interesting and helpful.

Profiling Your Competitors
by BNET Editorial

To pull ahead of your business competitors, you need to build a detailed profile of their strengths, weaknesses, and relationships with customers. With that information, you can compare the performance of your business with that of your main competitors, measuring factors that are important to quality of service, and use the comparison as the basis for performance improvement.

Competitor information can be obtained from many different sources, starting with what your competitors say on their own Web sites and in their brochures and annual reports about their capabilities, resources, and plans. You can find information about competitors in the press, trade publications, industry surveys, and on the Internet.

What You Need to Know
Who are my competitors?
Depending on the size of your company and the products or services you offer, you probably already know your competition—from advertising, trade shows, or even your customers. Never assume, however, that you know everything you should know about the competition. Who else is offering what you offer? Many products and services could be classed as non-essential and so customers may be choosing to spend their discretionary budget between two very different market sectors. Are you losing business that way? Is a larger company hurting your business by giving away a competing service as a promotion device? Always be alert to the different ways that others could be taking business away.

Why is competitor intelligence so important?
You need to understand what competitors are offering so you can offer at least as much to customers. Your marketing campaigns or product launches can be affected by what your competitors may be doing at the same time, so learning what you can about their plans is important. You also need to be aware if a competitor is threatening to take away your important accounts. Unless you monitor competitor activity and take appropriate action, your business faces an unknown risk.

Should we use an independent research company, or conduct the research internally?
You can conduct the research internally, provided you or your staff has the time. Much of the source material is in the public domain, so you should be able to obtain it yourself. Don’t overlook the wealth of information you already have in your company or can gain through your own contacts. If you wish to research customer attitudes toward your company versus your competition, you may need to use an independent research organization. Customers may not be completely honest with your own representatives.

How reliable is published competitor information?
Use your critical thinking skills to assess the accuracy and quality of any published information that is used for research. Make sure the information you find is current and that it comes from reliable sources.

What to Do
Identify Your Competitors
Competitor information helps you to identify how you can gain a larger share of the business from your competitors and how to protect the business you have.

Ask yourself:

How many competitors do you have?

Do they compete directly or indirectly?

Who are your major competitors—those that threaten to take away your most important customers?

How much of your business do these competitors threaten?

Quantifying the threat helps you to prioritize your own activities.

Where are your main competitors located?

How do they compare in size (to your company and to one another)?

Are they growing?

How do your products compare with your competitors’ offerings? Think about price, methods and quality of distribution, brand image and reputation, service quality etc.

What are customers’ attitudes toward your competitors and toward your own company?

Can you (or your customers) identify any weaknesses in your competitors?

Who are your competitors’ main customers?

Which of your customers might switch to your competitors, and why?

Which of your competitors’ customers do you want to win?

How strong are your competitors’ relationships with key customers or key decision makers?

How long have they been dealing with them?

Have your competitors invested in links with customers that would make it difficult for other suppliers to make inroads?

Does your company have the skills and resources to overcome the competitive threat?

Compare Your Key Competitive Factors
Listed below are a number of factors that are important to meeting customer needs. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is the best in the market), how does your company rate? Consider each factor carefully, then use your results as the basis for a program of performance improvement. Emphasize the things that matter to your customers rather than to your own opinions:

Evidence of an excellent service culture, for example, problems quickly resolved by frontline staff rather than referring customers to higher-level managers

High levels of after-sales service and support offered

Product adapted readily to meet customer specifications

Evidence of commitment to quality measurements, for example, measurements from your industry

Commitments made to customers—for example, offering money-back guarantees or precise delivery schedules

Evidence of feedback encouraged—for example, comment forms or toll-free telephone number made widely available

Flexible approach to pricing, such as the use of price incentives or financing plans to appeal to different types of customers

Willingness to negotiate prices for important customers

Staff knowledgeable about the product and willing to use knowledge to help customers

Good reputation with agents, distributors, and other intermediaries

Overall good reputation with employees as well as customers

Make Use of Your Sales Force
By talking to customers, your company’s sales representatives can find out about competitors’ direct sales calls, marketing campaigns, special offers, and new developments. They can obtain similar information from retailers or distributors. Crucially, they can get a feel for the customers’ awareness and attitude toward your competitors.

Monitor a Variety of Public Sources
You can learn a great deal about your competitors from their own public information: corporate brochures, annual reports, and exhibitions. Check your competitors’ Web sites frequently for updates on their products, plans, and capabilities as well as any customer case studies or news releases that may be posted on the site.

Monitor trade publications (many are available on the Internet) and the general press for useful information about your competitors. You may have the staff resources to maintain a file of press clippings on your competition, or you may wish to hire a clipping service to gather material for you.

Look for published results of industry surveys, which can provide useful insights into your entire market as well as your competitors.

Analyze Competitors’ Promotional Activities
By monitoring your competitors’ advertising, promotions, exhibition presence, press activities, and Internet information, you can assess their strategies. These are some of the possible scenarios:

Heavy advertising expenditure could indicate a competitor trying to win greater share or attempting to remedy losses in that market

Price promotions may indicate that your competitors want to be perceived as value-for-money suppliers, or they may be an emergency response to declining sales

Press announcements about new production facilities could indicate that your competitors are trying to increase their business significantly

They may become more cost-effective and able to offer lower prices, or may be taking on additional overhead that they must finance

Announcements about new branch or dealership openings could mean that competitors are expanding into new territories

Recruitment drives may signal a change in direction, a growth strategy, or a sudden loss of staff

To gain a better idea of your competitors’ financial health, you may be able to obtain information from credit reference agencies

Hire a Research Company
If you do not have the internal resources to monitor competitive activity, you can hire an independent research company to perform all the tasks outlined above. You can also ask the company to survey customers to reveal their attitudes toward your company versus your competitors. Customers may be more willing to discuss their attitudes with an independent researcher than they are with someone from your company.

Consider Benchmarking
Once you have assembled detailed information about your competitors, you can benchmark your performance against theirs. Competently done, benchmarking will give you a baseline assessment of your company’s effectiveness in the marketplace and some insight into where competitors may be gaining the advantage over you.

What to Avoid
You Overlook the Obvious Sources
Some competitor intelligence is freely available from the Internet, the press, and other public sources and—most important—from your staff, your customers, and your competitors themselves. Information from these sources can provide a valuable starting point for developing detailed competitor profiles.

You Fail to Make Use of Competitor Information
Competitor information is valuable only if you use it to refine your own strategies or take defensive action to protect your business. Simply gathering information without analysis or action is wasteful.

You Act on Incomplete or Out-of-date Information
Be cautious about acting on competitor intelligence until you have as much complete, accurate, up-to-date information as possible. Published sources can provide only a partial picture, and more strategic information is likely to be confidential. This means that you may make incorrect assumptions in planning your response to competitor action.

Starting a New Job

So you finally made it to your new workplace. Now take a deep breath and walk in with a smile on your face. Keep your head up and remember to make eye contact. Be polite and friendly to everyone you encounter, whether it's the receptionist or the mailroom clerk, your colleagues or your new boss. Introduce yourself to those you meet and remember that it's okay to ask questions. People generally like to help others and it usually makes them feel good about themselves.

While it's okay to hold onto some of things you learned in your previous jobs and use that knowledge in your new job, remember that every workplace has it's own way of doing things. Your first few weeks or even months on a job is not the time to change the way things get done. Do not utter these words: "That's not how we did it at my old company." Your colleagues will just be thinking this: "Well, you're not at your old company and if you liked it so much why didn't you stay there."

Here are a few more tips to consider when starting a new job:

Tone down the star quality

It's natural to want to impress your co-workers by sharing all of your terrific ideas right away. Resist that impulse.

Most colleagues will be threatened by your new ideas and will reflexively shoot them down.
Why? Because a) they're new ideas, and b) they're yours.

Remember, your co-workers thought they were doing pretty well before you showed up.

Instead, win over your new officemates by simply doing the job you've been assigned to do as well as you can. Then pick out some easy wins, small accomplishments that won't ruffle anyone's feathers but will further demonstrate your competence.

Maybe there's a nagging problem that everyone means to fix, but no one ever gets around to doing it.

There's your first job. Get a couple of minor accomplishments under your belt, and you'll earn your office's trust. After that, your ideas will be judged on their merits, not on who's proposing them.

Don't be Mr./Ms. Personality

Start slow when you're developing relationships. At the outset, respect is more important than friendship.

Be pleasant, be polite - but check your ebullience at the door. You don't get to make jokes for a while or spout off at meetings - gregariousness in a newcomer can be off-putting. It smacks of trying too hard.

Let your work speak for you. After a few weeks, you'll have built up enough good will to let your true self shine through. Get the inside scoop

Here's the challenge: You want to learn the culture of your new workplace - how things are supposed to work and how they really work because of the idiosyncrasies of co-workers - as quickly as possible, but you don't want to come across as prying.

Start by figuring out which people seem to be plugged in. Then approach them with simple questions about process ("How does Ms. Jones like to be kept informed about Project XYZ?"), steering clear of questions about personalities ("What's Ms. Jones really like?").

Chances are good that knowledgeable co-workers will pepper their responses with both types of info ("Send updates by e-mail, and keep them short - Jones is a real cut-to-the-chase type").

This way you get the information you need without looking like you were angling for it.

Know your boundaries at work

The border separating professional and personal relationships isn't easy to patrol, especially at smaller, informal offices. But conversational boundaries help to determine the reputation of an employee and staff. Simply put, boundaries preserve integrity.

Whether you're a principal, manager or rank-and-file employee, taking the following advice will help to ensure that conversations with co-workers never distract from a productive, positive workplace.

Beware of feeling informal. There's generally no clear rule about where to draw the line, so a good rule of thumb is to avoid issues that might make someone uncomfortable. Such topics of conversation may include romance, physical appearance, health, race, religion and personal finance.

Refrain from gossip. Remember: Those who talk to you about others will also talk about you to others.

Most gossip and other inappropriate conversations occur in places that feel informal, such as elevators, hallways and bathrooms or off-site like parking lots, restaurants. But co-workers should never get the false sense of security that they're off duty in these locations.

It's better to pretend your personal microphone is always on. Don't say something if you don't want it heard or repeated.

Forge office friendships with care. When you're at the office for around 2,000 hours a year, you're bound to develop friendships with co-workers. Some may become confidants with whom you share personal details.

Make sure you know and completely trust this kind of co-worker friend. It's a risk any time someone has knowledge about details you don't want to make public, particularly if co-worker friendships fizzle.

Expect boundary differences. The workplace not only combines people of different backgrounds, ages, talents and skills but also folks of different boundary types.

People with "overdeveloped" boundaries often are brash and don't notice they're sharing too much information, while people with "underdeveloped" boundaries often believe it's not OK to protest such communication.

Getting along at work is often a matter of being flexible and willing to compromise. It's also important to be tolerant of individual differences."

Employ tact. If you have a problem with a co-worker, address what you can do to solve it. Talk to the offending person directly and privately. If a co-worker says something that offends or upsets you, try to respond instead of react.

Talking behind someone's back makes the situation worse. Choose a neutral place away from your work area, such as over lunch or in a quiet area during a break.

Give 'em something to talk about

You don't have to be on your own for long. Determine who the influential people are (they are usually the ones whose opinions other people quote), and find a reason to work with them.

Get on their good side (by being competent, pleasant and professional), and you may find that a whole lot more people have started to warm to your presence.

Think of it as the workplace equivalent of a force multiplier. Get other people to toot your horn. Buzz created by others is far more valuable than buzz you drum up yourself. Ask for help, then take charge

Ask questions when you need information to complete an assignment. It's much preferred that employees admit not knowing something and show initiative in learning it rather than costing time and money by struggling with it on their own.

But asking repeatedly gets annoying. Most managers say they valued someone who can take orders and execute them well without having to be told repeatedly what to do.

What is welcome, however, is the employee who is proactive about figuring out what needs to be done and then doing it. One of the biggest mistakes new recruits can make is to assume that when they have nothing to do that there is nothing to do.

Know the boss

Whether you love or hate your managers matters less than whether you know what they value and what you can do to make them successful.

You need to take initiative to find out what's important to your boss and organization. Your value as an employee is measured by your showing results valued by your organization.

Few bosses are consistent about giving helpful feedback. And often they won't express their displeasure with your performance until it's too late. So, said Hollander, it's okay to say to your boss early on, "it would really help me if you could tell me when you're happy or unhappy with my work."

Cultivate good relationships

Good performance is just one part of your success at work. How you get along with managers, colleagues and subordinates is another.

Perception of performance is often colored by the quality of your relationships. Act like you're running for office. You'll need a vote from everyone. (But please ... don't act too much like you're running for office. There's nothing worse than glad-handing politicians with visions of poll numbers dancing in their heads.)

Humor is a big plus, but only if you have a good sense of when to use it and when not to.

Showing respect helps, too. A boss who acts friendly and casual does not mean to imply that “anything goes” and that you don't need to treat him or her with the proper respect.

And, don't skip the deodorant. Be well groomed, even if casual.

Don't watch the clock

This is not the time to work 9 to 5. Try 8 to 6. There's plenty of time to slack off later in life and the boss will take note.

If you have to stay a little late to meet a deadline or pull some hours on a weekend without being asked, it shows your commitment. It shouldn't be routine without compensation, but here or there it can get noticed.

It goes without saying, do not arrive late, be absent or ask for time off in the first 100-days of employment.

Listen…are you ringing the cash register?

It is easy to get distracted by a “to do” list filled with B, C and D priority items to “clear the way” to concentrating on the A priorities, like driving revenue. The fact is, all lesser pressing items somehow take care of themselves when revenues are rapidly increasing.

Even if pending A priorities seem insurmountable, tackle each top priority items during prime time work hours and chip away, move the ball downfield and press through every day. Save email, administrative and "catch-up" work for after hours.

Instead, reach for the sales opportunity first and make growing, contributing and developing promising new avenues to drive your new organization’s top-line, PRIORITY ONE.

5 Tips to Jump Start Your Career this Year

In our search for top talent, LinkedIn is a resource to Direct Search Alliance, as it is for recruiters nationwide. More importantly, is it a career tool for candidates representing their skills and talents to the online community. As a reader of the LinkedIn Blog, I wanted to share this posting with prospective candidates -- simple but powerful advice.

by Kay Luo - LinkedIn Blog
Here are five resolutions that professionals can make and keep this year, to jump start their career.

1. Build your online brand
Your online image can affect the way other professionals see you, just as much as your offline image. Create your own online professional brand by developing a LinkedIn profile. Make sure to keep information on your professional experience and other relevant information up-to-date. You may be surprised to learn how many recruiting executives use online networks to locate potential candidates. Also, if you're keen on building an impressive professional brand, make sure personal information intended for close friends stays private on the web. You don't want coworkers and potential employers looking at personal photos of your vacations and party shots. If you're curious about who is checking out your online brand, you can use LinkedIn's "Who's Viewed My Profile" feature to find out.

2. Be at the forefront of people's minds
In order to get leads and recommendations through your network, it's important to keep in touch with former colleagues as well as your present circle. LinkedIn allows professionals to remain at the forefront of people's minds by easily and efficiently keeping in touch. Using LinkedIn, it's easy to see who's been promoted, switched jobs, moved, won an award, and more. LinkedIn's InMail messaging system is a perfect way to reach out and keep your connections fresh, without cutting into your personal time.

3. Make smarter decisions
Being a great leader is not always about becoming an expert at everything -- it's really about knowing where to find knowledge and expertise when you need it. The LinkedIn Answers feature allows professionals to quickly and easily solicit input and gain perspective from their own connections or from the broader LinkedIn community. Learn how others approach new markets, revamp processes, and resolve problems. Draw on the collective knowledge of your trusted connections -- and their connections -- and benefit from the experience of others.

4. Prioritize how you spend your time
Everyone understands the importance of time management in today's accelerated workplace environment. Successful people are often sought after with requests from unknown people for meetings, events, speaking engagements, and more. The LinkedIn network can be used to quickly and efficiently check out these contacts and requests before committing. A quick search reveals anyone you might know in common, gives you a capsule impression, and helps you allocate your valuable time wisely. And if you need to prepare for a meeting, the Advanced Search feature can also save time by allowing you to find specialists on almost every topic, industry, or company you want to research.

5. Stay on top of what's going on in your world
If you want to be truly great at what you do, it's essential to stay on top of industry news at all times. LinkedIn News makes it easy for every professional to read the articles they need to read, by leveraging the power of their business connections. It starts by delivering news about key daily topics: a user's company, industry, and competitors, drawn from more than 10,000 publishers and blogs. Then, LinkedIn News uses the wisdom of each user's "crowd" of colleagues to determine the handful of articles that are the most important to their business -- the articles they need to read that day.

"What Can I Do to Help You Now"?

The Annual Economic Analysis released by the American Staffing Association June 2008 shows that, if indeed the U.S. economy is in a recession, the staffing industry is not experiencing the severe contraction characteristic of previous recessions. Despite the fact that demand is slowing, it is important to take into account that total staffing industry sales are $90 billion dollars. Staffing industry employment hit a new annual record high in 2007, and temporary and contract staffing daily employment also set new record highs in the second and third quarters of last year. Presently, the market is 10% ahead of 2000 – a banner year for Staffing – and nearly $30 billion ahead of the historic low of 2002.

There is market share for this period of “flatness," economic “correction” or “downturn,” but not for the cowardly. Those who take on the market’s sluggishness with energy and good judgment, leading actively and by example will prosper even in trying times.

Building a strong growth-sustaining team calls for the time and attention of the business unit manager to maintain a sense of urgency and establish solid work plans that will leverage each team member’s strength. Guidance, support and direction is essential to maximizing team members’ contributions and lift up the capacity of the team. A high level of engagement in training and development, as well as in guiding territory management and lead development is essential to bringing about results.

Business unit managers with the most success in developing strong teams and arranging talents of team members to the discipline in which they belong, direct and support the work flow collectively and individually, as well as contribute personally.

What then are the core best practices of a successful business unit manager?

1. Manage with twice daily meetings to communicate, set responsibilities and priorities. It is wrong to think that stopping “work” to meet as a team is a waste of time. A team with clear priorities and shared information is much more effective than a team “figuring it out on their own.” These are 30-minute meetings – everyone in attendance – with the following agenda items:

Recognition

Candidates for marketing to hiring mangers—who is highly placeable?

Call plans, target lists of hiring authorities—who are you going to call?

Candidate inventory and interview objectives.

Open job orders, next steps and who is responsible for it.

Specific objectives for the day (morning); assessment of outcomes (evening).

Upcoming ends—what business do we need to replace?

Specific, “stretch” objectives for the number of starts to happen within the week—what can we fill?, with whom?, who can we market who to?

Progress to objectives and refocusing all team members based upon current needs (e.g., do we need candidates, job orders, new leads?)

General communication…who may call, what is pending, hot candidates, prospective business—make sure the team knows what is happening.

Role play or planned lesson to foster skills development.

2. Manage the market, inventory and match. The leader must act as the first source of what is “hot” for follow-up to pick up the pace of all team members. The relationship and interplay between oversight of sales and service is leveraged when you can “see” a branch candidate and “match” the candidate to companies the sales team are engaging.

Weekly, review Business Journal, job boards, candidate applications, and expand knowledge of the marketplace with networking, marketing directories and other business resources to garner new leads for the sales team—who is hiring now?

Daily, review every interviewed candidate’s resume/file, meet as many candidates as possible personally—"Is so-and-so a fit for ABC Company”?

3. Manage business development purposefully. Who else but the manager should know the marketplace? Work with self and sales staff at the beginning and the end of the week to review target lists/lead lists/task lists for content, activity and next activity to do. Other sales driving best practices include:

Work together to make up an organizational chart for a minimum of three companies a week to expand the list of Company contacts, set out objectives to uncover missing information.

Ensure that each sales-responsible person has multiple search engines on multiple job boards to receive daily postings for each position the branch is prepared to fill—this will feed lead-following for immediate direct hire job orders. Ad book binders are fine for organizing ads for follow-up calls, but inputting leads to your front office system is better to build future calls plans—monitor use of front office systems so leads are not lost in a paper shuffle.

Set specific “blocked time” to make ad calls, skill marketing calls and qualifying calls to focus sales activity—sell during prime time, research and qualify during specific days/times set aside to develop future targets. Separating the two makes it easier to manage the effectiveness of sales efforts.

Set objectives for the appropriate number of sales calls/visits to support business and take the time to debrief together post-call/visit and plan next steps.

Make a work plan to set time aside for reference check calls—this supports the service team and offers better access to the Company contact who can be qualified as a temporary staffing or direct hire prospect.

Rotate assignment of making up and distributing a “Hot Candidates” communique—monitor and manage quality and growth of email lists.

4. Manage the business of the business. It is up to the leader to plan for maximizing the recruiting team at the beginning of the week to:

Set objectives for individuals’ focus…recruiting, skill marketing, order management—be specific regarding the objectives for the number of fee-eligible candidate and temp interviews in what positions.

Review T-H orders against temporary staffing opportunities to keep from over investing in job orders that, unlike temp, have less of an immediate chance to actually start—maintain a strict 50% of total orders, and…redirect team to actively skill marketing/selling for opportunities.

By the first of the month, ensure that each Recruiter has a minimum of five “viable” direct hire orders in the right skill set—mobilize sales and recruiting teams to generate marketing calls to address any gaps in the number of job orders.

Weekly, have a specific direct hire job order review and discuss what is pending and the next steps to close—communicate with neighboring offices to increase participation.

Step in to talk with candidates and/or Company contacts to assist in closing.

Set specific blocked times to make direct recruiting calls generated from applications/interviews/referrals—ensure a pipeline of leads from recruiting to sales—set up a method to communicate leads in a structured way.

Set objectives for net starts weekly, markup, and “level” of candidates to increase GM$ per hour. To achieve the net starts objective, a 30-day forecast of upcoming ends needs to be visible to the team to set the actual number of starts per week to stay ahead of the progression, including contingencies for unplanned ends. Make up for shortfalls by focusing on placing higher-level, higher-GM$ candidates.

5. Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs and motivation of each person. These differences are small, subtle, but great managers need to pay attention to them. These subtle differences guide them toward the right way to release each person's unique talents into performance. Recruit for talent, manage to strengths, hire expeditiously. Manage learning and development at least weekly, if not daily.

Set aside a minimum of 1-hour per week with each employee and talk about: what is expected, what you can do to set him/her up for success, what he/she does best, recognize performance—be specific, genuine and interested; uncover how to make the work meaningful, gain feedback and talk about progress, learning opportunities and how each individual’s contribution fits in the overall company and his/her career progression.

Assign Company training resources to employees and organize opportunities for employees to share learning with the team

Prepare role plays to overcome common objectives—have all team members involved. Listen, and role play with individuals to improve recruiting, negotiation, customer service and closing skills.

Share financial reports to engage the team in the outcomes—demonstrate how increasing markups, direct hire placements/fees and marketing higher-level candidates improves results and personal financial rewards.

Get out of your office and sit side by side with the team and demonstrate best practices…show, not tell.

6. Do not delegate tasks that are not revenue-generating. Support the team with meaningful contributions so they can do their jobs more effectively—individual activity to generate personal production for the good of the branch is useful, but equally important is preparing and focusing each team member by taking responsibility for administrative and operational support to enable the team to expand the business. This is not “lending a hand,” this is “doing” a task completely so the collective bandwidth of the branch team is actively engaged in work that generates gross margin dollars.

Use administrative support to assist you as needed, but do the heavy lifting yourself administratively to ensure that each employee is focused on developing the business. Release the team to “ring the cash register” collectively by doing weekly tasks like payroll and compliance, invoicing and aging, updating and managing all job postings, job board searches—review, print and distribute resumes for blocked recruiting call times.

Drive sales by sourcing new leads that any branch team member can “run with.” Get the details so the next step is to “pick up the phone.” Get names of multiple Company contacts for each lead identified, get contact information (telephone, email address), input new leads to front office system and set them up on team members’ calendar or task list. Generate urgency to follow-up on specific contacts by personally contributing to the database in a meaningful way. Dedicate time to adding Companies/Company contacts in numbers and update Company records that are out of date. If you pass on a lead with good contact information and business intelligence, it is more likely to be followed and create outcomes.

Take up operational tasks (application process items, reference checking, etc.).

Revise/retype resumes for presenting candidates.

Make up handwritten notes to every candidate who comes in the office; prepare marketing mailings.

Run reports to assess business activity and inventory.

Roll out corporate initiatives and respond to corporate response/reporting requirements.

Ask, “What can I do to help you now”?

It’s About People

Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person he or she knows and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth. The modern world is shrinking due to this ever-increasing connectedness of human beings. In a “small world,” our actions resonate in wide social and professional circles, broadcasting our persona for all to see.

Mindful of this phenomena, consider the advice of Lillian Eichler Watson “Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes - one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.”

Good business etiquette is about being on your best behavior and treating people as you appreciate being treated.

Stay employed and protect your professional reputation with these best practices:

• Be courteous and thoughtful to the people around you, in all professional environments—within your own organization, out in the marketplace, and even when encountering competitors
• Consider other people’s feelings, stick to your convictions as diplomatically as possible
• Talk and visit with people, regardless of their position or standing—remember what you can about people and to be thoughtful
• If you show respect and courtesy to everyone, you avoid discomfort or damaging your chances in any unexpected turn of events like a merger, acquisition or consolidation that brings together people in unforeseen ways
• Speak well of superiors within and outside the company, and give your leaders the benefit of the doubt—never surprise your boss or take her or her off guard
• In foreign or unfamiliar surroundings, be considerate and express an interest in learning—if in doubt, err on the conservative, formal side
• Don’t interrupt meetings or work sessions with telephone calls, use of electronic devices or ducking out—thank meeting attendants, and when attending meetings offer thanks to the organizer
• Always return calls; with email, remember that you’re communicating with a person, not a computer
• Look after new people and visiting workers—be sure that person has the resources and information that he or she needs to do the job
• Pass along credit and compliments—speak well of your coworkers and always point out their accomplishments
• Arrive on time and don’t overstay your welcome
• Because people make so many assumptions about you based on your image, it's important to think about whom you want them to think you are and dress accordingly
• Lying to and gossiping with people is never acceptable—inflammatory or disrespectful electronic communication can resurface and is best never written
• Poor etiquette loses the sale—speak only kindly to, and with respect to, prospects and clients—comments spoken behind the backs of clientele have a way of coming back around

Work, Success and Charity

Many successful working professionals in better-than-average circumstances believe in shared social responsibility to try to help people in need directly. Some have genuine passion to help because of a personal connection to a cause. Most, at the very least, feel good about helping others. My own social convictions correspond with these sentiments. Regrettably, time to be had to do so often stands in the way of getting personally involved.

The American Time Use Study released June 2007 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the entire population to report the overall distribution of time allocation for society as a whole.

Americans reported that they spend, on average, .13 hours per day dedicated to volunteering (organizational and civic activities). Some of the many reasons for that small measure of time are as follows:

Employed persons worked 7.6 hours on average on the days that they worked—multiple jobholders were about twice as likely to work on an average weekend day as were single jobholders

On an average day, 84 percent of women and 64 percent of men spent 2.2 hours doing household activities, such as housework, cooking, lawn care, or financial and other household management

Adults living in households with children spent 0.8 – 2.0 hours providing primary childcare

People spent, on average, 9.21 hours with personal care activities including sleeping, bathing, dressing, health-related self-care, and personal or private activities

On an average day, nearly everyone age engaged in 5.5 hours of leisure activity, such as watching TV, socializing, or exercising

For those engaged in the labors of work to sustain and better personal and family circumstances, time is indeed precious. To alleviate a guilty conscience respecting community involvement, many elect to give money as an alternative to dedicating “free” time. As reported by the U.S. Census 2000, contributing households donated 2% of personal income to qualified organizations or for out of pocket expenses serving as a volunteer—far less than the 10% ideal standard set by tithing doctrines. Determining the right amount to give is an individual decision as charity by definition is a “gift.” Opinions differ as to how much to give, and whether it is better to give money or volunteer time.

If, however, you are an employees, employer or entrepreneur—take comfort, as it may be argued that work, in and of itself, reconciles disparity with respect to volunteering and contributing. Economic growth caused by capitalism has done considerably more to alleviate poverty and advance standards of living than all government, philanthropy and aid programs combined. It is likely markets will continue to do this for a long time. Increase in the production of goods and services over time is often used as a measure of increased material well-being of the citizenry generated through economic activity.

The beauty of capitalism is that it accomplishes aggregate good through what can be thought of as selfish motives. But it does not put an end to the debate as to the duty for those of us in better circumstances to try to help people and the community directly. Because capitalism and policies that promote them will not take care of everything, charity is neither a waste of time nor money.

Managing Middlescence

Key ideas from the Harvard Business Review article by Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson, Ken Dychtwald

Burned out. Bottlenecked. Bored. That’s the current lot of many midcareer employees—those 35 to 54 years of age. Thirty percent of these middlescents work 50+ hours per week, while only 33% feel energized by their jobs. And many lament that their workplace offers few opportunities to try new things.

If your company’s like most, midcareer managers and employees make up half your workforce. Neglect their discontent, and you risk losing valued performers who seek exciting work elsewhere. This is a dangerous development—considering the brain drain that’ll soon hit when the vanguard of baby boomers retires. Disaffected middlescents who stay because they need the money take an even worse toll: Their lack of energy, innovation, and focus erodes your firm’s productivity.

How to avoid these losses? Tap into your middlescents’ hunger for renewal by helping them launch into new, more productive, more meaningful roles and careers. Fresh assignments enable middlescents to acquire new skills. Job changes help them develop new specialties. And training expands their business knowledge and stokes their desire to learn more.

You’re probably already using such simple and inexpensive career revitalization techniques on your stars. Extend them to all your midcareer employees: They’ll reward you with renewed commitment and productivity, as well as reduced replacement costs—immediately.

The Idea in Practice
Use these strategies to revitalize middlescents’ careers:

Fresh Assignments
Offer new assignments in different locations or parts of your organization to leverage middlescents’ existing skills and contacts while helping them acquire new ones. General Electric taps experienced managers to integrate new acquisitions—giving them a change of scene and bringing to bear their extensive organizational know-how.

Career Changes
Provide attractive internal career changes to help middlescents develop new specialties. Early in his 30+ years with Pitney Bowes, Dave Nassef served as a factory personnel manager and then marketer. When the company centralized HR, he was one of the few HR managers with manufacturing and marketing experience. At 40, he took on HR responsibility for half the company. Nassef’s additional careers within Pitney Bowes include corporate ombudsman and company representative in Washington.

Mentoring
Encourage middlescents to mentor less-seasoned employees. Your midcareer managers will relish giving back to their organization and making new social connections in the workplace. At Intel, a companywide employee database tracks skills attained and needed and matches employees with mentors—even if they’re in a different country. Both mentors and protégés take classes to learn ways to maximize the mutual benefit of their relationship.

Fresh Training
Don’t assume your middlescents don’t need training. Provide brief introductions to new business areas to expand their perspectives and trigger their interest in learning more. Use refresher courses and in-depth education to help them strengthen or develop their skills. The U.K.’s National Health Service is responding to a chronic nursing shortage by training seasoned aides to become nurses.

Sabbaticals
Provide paid sabbaticals: They cost less than replacing disaffected middlescents, and most people return from sabbaticals more committed than ever. At Wells Fargo, employees with five or more years of service and qualifying performance ratings can work in community service settings of their choosing for up to four months while receiving full pay and benefits. One employee traveled to Armenia to help women establish businesses. The company reaped good publicity, and the employee returned to work highly energized and recommitted.

Leadership Development
Just because midcareer workers are older doesn’t mean they don’t aspire to higher roles. Give them access to leadership development programs to rejuvenate them and stock your leadership pipeline. Health insurer Independence Blue Cross has put one-third of its top 600 people—most of them middlescents—through a leadership program. It includes a weeklong session at the Wharton School, individual coaching and career planning, and work on important business projects.

Copyright 2006 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Passive Job Seeker Recruitment

Guess what? All the good candidates are working. Luckily though, you’re not limited to just the 4-5 percent of Americans who are currently unemployed. Which is good, since only 20 percent of the unemployed are actively seeking jobs. The rest of the unemployed are truly unemployable. So where do you turn? Passive candidates.

Passive candidates are those individuals gainfully employed by your competitors. They are likely loyal, happy experienced employees that are not necessarily looking to change companies and would need a solid reason to leave. And if you get their attention, you’ll have to work fast. They’re not willing to spend much time in the interview and hiring process (though they may take their sweet time making a decision).

Why specifically target passive candidates in the first place? Why not keep with your traditional recruiting through mediums such as classified listings and job postings, and assume it will reach the best candidates? First of all, 80 percent of any company’s recruiting budget is spent on traditional activities – meaning there are a lot of companies reaching out to candidates in the same fashion. Each minute of every day there are about 294,000 recruiters logged into online job boards grabbing active candidates and battling for the ever shrinking labor pool. Those who are in the market for a job may or may not notice those ads and apply with your company.

Those who aren’t in the market – passive candidates – aren’t looking and are thus completely unaware of your presence in these traditional outlets. It’s similar to being in the market for a new car. All of a sudden you start looking and noticing cars on the road. If you are not in the market for a new car, you’re not “aware” of advertising. The same goes with job hunting. If you’re in the market for a new job – you’re aware. Reaching passive candidates takes a different approach.

The first step is having a quality recruiter who will be able to make a positive and lasting impression. You need someone who not only understands your industry and what competitors are offering, but also has a keen understanding of what the passive candidate wants. A good recruiter for passive candidates needs to have the ability to sell the position, and outsell their current employer. Part of this is the ability to build strong relationships so the candidate not only remembers you and your company, but also trusts you and will refer others to you in the future.

Speaking of referrals, this is one of the best sources for passive candidates. Who do your internal associates know? What about your vendors and customers? Chances are someone you know has a business or personal relationship with the ideal candidate for your company. Establish an incentive program for referrals and see your candidate pool expand.

Another great recruiting method is encouraging your employees to attend networking events and association meetings. While picking up sales leads, have them keep their eyes open for potential associates for your open roles. This builds direct contacts in your industry or one very closely related, and breaks the ice of unfamiliarity. Remember that even event speakers and experts are not off limits for recruitment. While you’re at it, don’t be afraid to go after the employees of your competitors. Fact is, they’re doing the very same thing. Finally, utilize online networking sources such as LinkedIn or Pulse.

You know who to target and where to find them, but how do you reach them? Approach it with the knowledge that they’re not looking to move. Be sure to avoid asking why they’re interested in working for your company – they’re not. Do discovery first. What would potentially motivate them to move? What professional needs do they have that are not being met? What are their future goals? Then sell the opportunity based on how your position and the company culture fulfill those initiatives.

Next, be flexible. You want this person but he or she does not have to give you the time of day. Lose the tailored process, avoid assessments and applications, and bend over backwards to schedule convenient interview times. Now is not the time for reference checks either. Confidentiality is of utmost importance if you want a chance at securing this candidate.

Once you decide you want them, make an offer quickly. Encourage their potential manager and peers to make follow-up calls. The decision to change jobs when they’re not unhappy is a difficult one. Help make their decision to leave easier. Follow these practices, and the quality of your new hires will improve.

The source of this article is Pro Staff - Special Advertising Supplement to Workƒorce MANAGEMENT

Don't Be a "Hater" - Be a Celebrator!

When the economy is robust, the Staffing Industry enjoys growth, piggybacking on the expansion of fast-growing and major industries. When demand is high, opportunity comes knocking, asking work teams only to react. Those that do so effectively enjoy the rewards of increasing revenues and the camaraderie winning teams encourage. The ability to overcome the difficulty factor in finding "good" candidates is the defining "high-level" challenge that separates the top-performers from the average players.

As the economy slows, a new challenge emerges. No knocking. This introduces a new business challenge, how to create "something' from "nothing" - making sales in an increasingly competitive environment. For most teams, this brings about collective confusion, procrastination and fear in the face of declining results. These stresses turn camaraderie to antagonism, resulting in a loser's pessimism. A work team's synchronicity is compromised, begging motivation and direction.

What to do?

Talk to each other. Really, that's what I suggest as a starting point. Ask about the following - What are your career goals? Why did you decide you wanted to work here? What would you like to accomplish while you are here? What are you truly good at? What "out of your comfort zone" work are you willing to do? Are there any suggestions you would make if you had the ability to improve the way you did your particular job? Are there any suggestions you would make if you had the ability to improve the way other staff did their particular job?

Out of this simple process comes volumes of information - most of it useful and relevant. This information enables teams to recommend a transformation in the way they, as individual contributors, and supporters of each other, work collectively in the new economic climate.

Get into Line With What Are the Objectives. Continue the conversation and set specific outcomes aligned with desired results. Generally, this will be centered around developing new business and the who, what, when, what and how to go about it.

Make a Plan. It is not a top-down plan, it is the plan developed from hours of conversations with co-workers. They developed it, put it together. And, with my each team member's strong assistance, encouragement, and support, it can be implemented.

Celebrate the Results. This is the part that brings back "winners" camaraderie. Recognize brave actions, continuing attempts in the face of failures, small achievements, ease with changing daily tasks, new skill with unfamiliar activities, and when a coworker "steps up" to "lift up" the team.

So there you have it - communicate and build alignment, fall in with the objectives and celebrate your achievements. In doing so, you just might find that this encourages good people and business behavior that sustains and uplifts top-performing teams, even in uncertain economic times.

Motivation Tips for Success

So the economy is a bit down, orders are slowing down and the pressure is on to meet your revenue goals. Strategizing with your sales team is certainly a good idea. Coming up with creative ways to motivate your sales team is definitely the right way to go. The right amount of nudging might just be what a crestfallen sales person or recruiter might need reinvigorate and start their efforts anew.

Many people and companies think that the only method of motivating sales people is to give them an opportunity to make more money. Salespeople are certainly motivated by money, but other factors come into play. You need to take some of these factors into consideration when working to motivate your sales people.

When trying to motivate sales people it is important to insure that your salespeople understand the vision of the company. Whether you are an individual selling on your own, or you are motivating sales people in a large sales force, it is important that salespeople are able to move toward an empowering vision. The head of the company (or you, if you own the company) must have a strong vision and communicate it to the sales people in a clear and concise manner.

Another important factor in motivating sales people is the culture of the company or organization. Sales people are often motivated by being part of a very strong and a very well understood cultural environment. The vision for the culture of the company must be clearly communicated and demonstrated from the top of the company. If sales people are clearly involved in the company’s culture, it will motivate them more than big paychecks.

Sales people are also strongly motivated by recognition. Public recognition can be a very powerful motivator for sales people. In my company, we motivate our sales people by giving them recognition at events that the whole company attends. This type of recognition can be very powerful in motivating sales people and making them feel more connected to your company.

Regardless, at the end of the day, all motivation is essentially self-motivation. Here are seven very practical, easy-to-follow and helpful self motivation tips and techniques you can use and share to withstand even the most difficult times:

1. Identify and Set Short-term Goals That "Move the Ball” in the Right Direction
Figure out your most pressing and specific goals - reaching established budgets or recovering recent business milestones may seem too far reaching. Focus energies on immediate action and outcomes - once achieved, then celebrate progress and set new objectives. Set, achieve, celebrate and repeat.
2. Create Realistic Timelines
The next logical step is to create deadlines. Even if they are not exact, it gives you a rough timeframe and helps you keep your eye on the prize.
3. Make a Plan
Now that you have your goals clearly stated and timelines appointed, there must be a plan of action for how you will get it all done.
4. Overcome Procrastination
Many people have a hard time with self motivation simply because of their bad habit of procrastination. A major cause of procrastination is usually just feeling overwhelmed, which keeps you from beginning. A buddy-system or networking venue may help coworkers help each other stay motivated.
5. Accept Obstacles
On the road to completing your goals, you will undoubtedly come across obstacles. Though challenges can cause people to lose motivation and quit, if you learn to see them as your teacher, the obstacles will begin to work for you rather than against you.
6. Positive Attitude
Envision yourself reaching goals, even if they are only for the end of the day. As Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can or think you can not—you are probably right.” A positive attitude almost always breeds positive results, but a negative attitude will do just the opposite.
7. Enjoy yourself
Finally, enjoy yourself. While this tip may seem more common sense than other self motivation tips, it is essential.

Times are getting tougher, and you don't want to lose your A players for sure – especially during a slowing economy. There is always need for top talent in a weak economy. When times are hard and average performers are not doing so well, staffing firms seek good performers to weather the downturn.

Managers’ Survey: Interviewees Flunking Etiquette 101

The Find: 59 percent of hiring managers say that job candidates’ manners have deteriorated in recent years.

The Source: A recent survey from Vault.

The Takeaway: With a plethora of sources of advice for interviewees, it seems like, by now, every job seeker should know the interview etiquette basics. But when Vault surveyed over 150 hiring managers, they uncovered a multitude of interview sins. Even that most covered principle of job hunting–dress the part– is often overlooked (or misinterpreted). A full 87 percent of hiring managers have had candidates show up dressed inappropriately. But hiring managers encounter more extreme behavior problems as well:

26 percent have had interviewees answer their cell phones during the interview
43 percent have had candidates use profanity
19 percent have had job seekers show up with a child in tow

It may seem sort of depressing that these etiquette basics need to be gone over again, but it is heartening for businesspeople who have their interview etiquette down cold to be reminded that all those carefully pressed cuffs and polite thank you emails may, in fact, make you stand out.

By Jessica Stillman

Are You Truly Ready to Sell?

Selling is all about preparation. However, you can know your customer’s business (and your own business) up, down and sideways, but if you don’t know the points of leverage — the places where you can influence the customer to buy — you’re not really ready sell.

Scientific research (really!) suggests that if you’ve got six key questions answered in your own head, you’re far more likely to make a sale. They’re generic to all sales situations and provide some touch points to know whether you’ve got the leverage to develop the prospect and close the deal.

1. How can I help this customer? If you truly believe that you can help the prospect, the prospect will feel obligated to say “yes.” Example: if you’re only calling on truly qualified prospects, and you’ve got an offering that you’re sure can do the job, you know that you can help them.
2. What will it cost the customer to not buy? A prospect is more likely to say “yes” if there’s pain and loss connected with saying “no.” If the prospect stands to lose business or opportunity or career points by not buying, you’ve got leverage to make the sale.
3. What are the sources of my authority? A prospect is more likely to say “yes” if he or she believes you are knowledgeable and credible. So be certain that you’ve done everything you can to establish yourself as a credible source that can add value to the conversation.
4. What similar commitments have already been made? A prospect is more likely to say “yes” if they’ve already made public commitments consistent with purchasing. Example: a prospect that’s made a public commitment to increase revenue will buy offerings that help achieve that.
5. Who among the prospect’s peers is already your customer? Prospects believe that saying “yes” entails much less risk if the prospect knows of similar people who have already said “yes.” Make sure that you have reference accounts and sell through referrals whenever possible.
6. What is it about this customer that I can truly like and respect? A prospect is more likely to say “yes” to somebody who is likeable, and likeability is a reflection of your own attitude towards the prospect. So find out what’s special about the prospect, and decide to like and respect it.

By Geoffrey James