New Phenomenon in Workplaces

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What is a Victim of the Economic Boom you ask?

Isn’t it normally a “victim of the recession”??

There is new phenomenon being observed in many organizations we are choosing to call “victims of the economic boom.”

Unfortunately, many of these victims are at higher levels in companies and cause major headaches for organizations and HR professionals.

So what is a victim of an Economic Boom?

Well over the greater part of the past decade when we saw booms and easy money like no other times in history, which resulted in record profits for many different industries. Many “executives” or managers received prime positions or promotions due to success within their division or organization that was in part attributed to them, or attributed to them by themselves in the case of resumes and interviewing.

So all is going along well when times are good and it doesn’t take a lot of skill to maintain the status quo or even increase revenues, deliverables etc. Even the manager with the least amount of skill can look competent, however once the economy slows down or even corrects watch out.

One of the more unfortunate realities is that many of these “victims” as mentioned, have attained positions higher up in an organization, so when the light is seemingly shined on their true ability or lack thereof, a self preservation reaction sets in and unfortunately when you are dealing with higher level management who have been able to get by unchallenged, their true insecurity comes out. As anyone who has witnessed an insecure manager at work knows the people around them quickly become scapegoats and the whole environment turns toxic.

So why call them victims didn’t they bring them on themselves? Well yes perhaps the use of the word was meant to be tongue in cheek, however in all honesty the true victims are the organizations themselves and the employees and middle management who have to try and deal with these toxic personalities on a day in and day out basis.

I compare it to the real estate industry where there were so many realtors during the boom times because as one realtor friend puts it “a trained monkey could sell houses”, however now that the situation has turned we see a bleeding of realtors like no other industry, because in an business that is self driven only truly competent players can survive, unlike most industries where the incompetent, especially in management positions, can fly under the radar or tread water by blaming their reports or others in the organization who may be a convenient scapegoat.

Fortunately these people are eventually found out and hopefully flushed out, however far too often it is after irreparable damage has been done to their organizations and the lives of people they work with.

Are you losing good people due to this type of behavior? How does your organization ensure this does not happen?

Do you have a similar story? If so we would like to hear it and how you dealt with it by either commenting on our blog or emailing us your story at administrator@revolutionhrandrecruiting.com

Yet another new pricing tactic in the recruitment industry

http://www.revolutionhrandrecruiting.com/2/post/2011/02/yet-another-new-tactic.html

In our ongoing review of new tactics that seem to arise as the marketplace as the recruiting industry goes through changes we had yet another interesting discussion with a client.

A note on this particular tactic, while our practice has been to offer packages to clients who are looking for us to take on project hires etc. we do not require a customer to commit to a certain number of hires to get a “better” price.

Last week I was discussing a search with a client and they mentioned that they had been contacted by a search firm, they weren’t familiar with them and I hadn’t heard of them either.

While they acknowledged the call started well, when they asked about rates things started to get a little weird.

The sales reps response was that rates are between 18-20%, when asked about the difference the rep replied depending on the level of position or if you commit to use us for substantial volume.

So my client being fairly outspoken asked about the volume discount? The rep responded that they require clients to commit, via contract, to hire at least five positions throughout the year from his firm to obtain preferred pricing.

My client’s response was “well what if after hiring one person we don’t think you’re the right fit for our company to use or didn’t like your service? Do we have to pay back the 2% or do we owe you for at least 4 more hires at an average salary? “At this point the rep had no answer and was dumbfounded by the question it seemed.

However to his credit received a very timely phone call and had to end the conversation with my client.

Our belief is that requiring a client to commit to using your service in order to obtain a discount is not doable in this industry given the variables that can accompany the hiring volume during the year.

A company should have a competitive well thought out pricing structure that makes sense not only to company but to the client as well, and be confident in the thought that they are offering real value to their clients for the price offered.

Which begs the question what extra value you’re getting for the 15-35% you are paying for recruiting services? Is there a specific offering? Are you required to sign a sole contractor agreement or commit to a certain amount of volume?

Our belief and driving force behind our business model is that the recruitment industry, similar to other long standing industries with large players, have a consensus about pricing structure that is accepted by the majority of firms who have structured their business model around this, other firms will not deviate for fear of retribution or the thought that it is a price accepted by the marketplace already, so why cut into potential margins.

What is lacking is a review of their services to substantiate what value they are offering to the clients that choose to do business with them, if they truly feel that they are offering value to their clients that substantiate fees of 15-20% they should be able to articulate it and have their clients be comfortable with their explanation….

Trends in HR/Recruitment

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Excellent insight below from a portion of an article we found on Canadian PR regarding HR/Recruiting trends in 2011, in particular the migration of talent to other companies positions, will you be ready to attract the best in the field??

"Changing Jobs – Workers are becoming more optimistic about their job prospects in the New Year.  Fifteen percent of full-time, employed workers are actively seeking a new job.  Seventy-six percent reported that, although they are not actively looking, they would change jobs in 2011 for the right opportunity.  Workers aren't necessarily focused on a bigger paycheck.  Sixty-eight percent reported that affordable benefits are more important to them than salary."

Massive changes in the recruitment industry!

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When we first launched we received some less than welcoming emails from some in the recruitment community, as we look back, we still firmly believe that we have changed and continue to revolutionize the recruitment industry for the better.

One email specifically (which is posted below) talks about how we are trying to “undermine” the recruitment industry, we assume that the emailer is referring to our pricing structure which is radically different from traditional recruitment rates.

To be clear we are not adversarial with “recruiters” many of our best clients are former “external recruiters” because they quickly saw the value when we first came to market.

The email also refers to “getting what you pay for” in regards to this, we thought we would revisit the email and address the reason behind our fee structure.

As with any other industry as technology improves our processes and creates efficiencies traditional pricing is often the first thing reviewed, we compare our industry loosely to the cell phone or cable TV industry or even real estate for that matter, where technology has made it much easier to deliver services (or content) than ever before allowing (in theory) for more competition.

Initially these adjustments are always met with the same reaction from larger incumbents claiming that the service won’t be the same or the product is somehow inferior (which never seems to be the case), unfortunately this is just a natural reaction to the fact that long standing industry norms are changing and this includes high price structures that are required to support existing business models.

So how do we support our pricing structure when it’s so radically different from the majority?

Do we cut services in any way? No, in fact we feel we can offer more focused personalized service as we are HR professionals with industry contacts, we know that credentials aren’t  all that matter when you’re doing something so important as hiring an employee into your company, we feel that every hire is an opportunity to take your business to the next level.

We don’t employ armies of sales people and admin staff to stock pile resumes that loosely fit positions, because we have been on the internal recruitment side and know that every company requires certain intangibles from every employee to fit their culture.

We don’t post phantom postings (or any other postings for that matter) on Craigslist or other job boards. While some of our candidates may have applied to job boards in the past we feel that the best people are often the passive job seekers that are full of passion and talent but are just waiting to have the right opportunity presented to them.

What we do is leverage technology, relationships, social media and recruiting talent to bring you the right candidates faster, more effectively and more efficiently than anyone else.

The email below served as motivation for continued success, we revisit it regularly as we received it just as our success started to really begin and companies began to take notice.

We look forward to working with you to build your teams in 2011!

Enjoy the email below from “John Smith”

“Your business concept is weak and your feeble attempt to undermine the industry isn’t the first and, like those that came before it, will certainly fail. You know the old saying; "you get what you pay for" Better get your resume out there............”

www.revolutionhrandrecruiting.com