HRO Today Forum In Vogue

I found my attendance at last week’s HRO Today Forum to be very worthwhile. I presented my newly published research on the “State of the Learning BPO Marketplace,” including the emergence of social learning. While there, I took full advantage of attending many of the other sessions and meeting with several companies including: The Good Jobs, KellyOCG, Pinstripe, Randstad Sourceright, Kenexa, Aon Hewitt, Raytheon Professional Services, NorthgateArinso, Seven Step Recruitment, and Hays. Here are some of the highlights from the forum.

The Good Jobs: The Good Jobs is an online service that allows job seekers and employers an innovative way to find each other. Employers not only advertise job opportunities, but also their employment brand, culture, and corporate values to candidates. Job seekers can identify their life and work style priorities, and target those employers who meet their needs. Matching talent desired to employer desired will lead to employee engagement and retention in addition to business results, including increased productivity and lower cost by reduced attrition. No surprise The Good Jobs won the iTalent competition.

Where do Jobs Come From Panel: This panel was led by Prudential HR SVP Sharon Taylor and included Brink Lindsey from the Kauffman Foundation; Scott Case, CEO of Startup America; and John Haltiwanger from the University of Maryland. A few interesting data points from this session included the following:

• 90% of companies are small, but 65% of employees work for large companies
• 2003 – 2007 saw high job growth averaging 200,000 hires per month but it was not as strong as the 1990s
• From ~1977 – 2003, there were only 5 years that job growth exceeded layoffs for non-start-up companies, i.e. a net creation in jobs
• I missed the time period, but the point was that more jobs have been created in startups (3.5m) vs. established private sector companies (2.5m)
• The fastest growing businesses are also the most profitable.

Is Outsourcing Good for America Debate: Interesting points from the pro side included:

• 90% of outsourcing serves companies outside of the U.S.
• 95% of world consumers are outside of the U.S.
• 90% of what is made abroad gets sold abroad
• Foreign companies invest more in the U.S. (e.g. Honda, Nissan, BMW) than the U.S. invests abroad (it’s a 2 way street)
• The U.S. tax rate is one of the highest in the world adding to why some companies shift a portion of their business and jobs offshore.

Congratulations to all Bakers Dozen MSP winners led by Randstad Sourceright, Staff Management, Allegis Group Services, Adecco Solutions Group, The Bartech Group, Guidant Group, Advantage xPO, KellyOCG, Hyphen, Agile 1, Yoh, Hays Plc, and WorkforceLogic.

Congratulations to HRO Award recipients including providers NorthgateArinso, Pinstripe, Aon Hewitt, KellyOCG, and Evolv, Inc.; provider executives Cynthia Crose of IBM and Mike Ettling of NorthgateArinso; and buyer executive Chris Payton of Bank of America.

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by emailing amy.gurchensky@nelson-hall.com with “HRO Insight” as the subject.

What are the Top Global Skill Shortages?

Even when the U.S. unemployment rate was over 10%, we’ve heard that the unemployment of skilled workers with college degrees remained low at ~4-5%, and we’ve read data on just how bad the skill shortage is, including ManpowerGroup’s findings that 52% of U.S. companies are struggling to fill key jobs. We’ve also heard from me as an analyst (and former HRO buy-side client), pointing to the fact that development and retention of talent are more paramount than ever. But not as much has been written about what are the top global skill shortages. Well not until last week when U.K.-based global recruitment and RPO provider Hays issued a good concise summary of the top ten global skill shortages.

The list divides the skills by soft skills and hard skills that are in shortage globally.

Soft Skills

• Languages
• People and communication
• Team management and leadership
• Organization.

Hard Skills

• Financial and budgetary
• IT
• Green skills
• Procurement and negotiation
• Research and development
• Healthcare.

Beyond being good for job candidates and employees to know the skills they need to focus on; employers need to do a better job of investing in their workforce to develop and retain the talent that they already have. In fact, employees are looking for that. Mercer’s newly released eBook, “What’s Working Around the World”, points to the fact that career advancement and training opportunities are among the top priorities of the employee value proposition in many countries and are needed to address low levels of employee engagement.

As I get ready to publish my next global learning BPO report, I am optimistic to hear that talent management focus is no longer just a desired priority but is now a business imperative. Clients are increasingly focused on learning linked to talent management, including the linkage of learning to performance management and developmental plans. To meet client needs to attract, develop, and retain talent, vendors have been developing their talent management capability. This includes MPHRO vendors such as Xerox, Aon Hewitt, Talent2, IBM, and Accenture, whose talent management offering includes workforce forecasting and analytics, recruitment, performance management, succession planning, and learning.

In the report, I also wrote about the advent of social learning. For now, I’ll just say that speed to competence, followed by how the new generation of employees that are entering the workforce wants to learn, as well as the need for improved talent management, are what’s driving the acceleration of social learning.

If you are not already following me on Twitter, please do so at @GaryB_NH as I will tweet when the LBPO report is published. I’m targeting the 30^th of April, in time for my presentation at the HRO Today Forum on May 1^st titled State of the Learning BPO Marketplace and the Emergence of Social Learning.

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall.

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by emailing amy.gurchensky@nelson-hall.com with “HRO Insight” as the subject.