Why do we have layoffs? One counter-intuitive answer is “because retention programs work.” Layoffs happen because the efforts to keep the workforce trimmed didn’t work. Attrition wasn’t high enough. The right people did not leave of their own accord.
Hiring and Keeping the Best People is a standard goal in most organizations. Identifying key talent and promoting them is such a core part of conventional wisdom that we take it for granted. Most leaders aspire to be surrounded by trusted colleagues who are well seasoned and deeply experienced.
When this idea spreads through an organization, it is called “Retention”. In a harsher light, it is the essence of cronyism and featherbedding.
Is it really a sound business practice?
Good, strategic workforce planning is virtually nonexistent. Instead of accurately knowing and describing the specifics of our workforces, we rely on tired generalizations. We want to manage attrition down and become the “employer of choice”. In other words, our HR Departments lead us down the primrose path and make our organizations home to people who retire in place.
It should be no surprise that we have downturns. Preparing for them, hiring wisely and continually pruning the organization is the right way to approach the problem. Too few hands always leads to greater productivity.
Time and again, our organizations act surprised when the downturn comes. RIFs mean that we “hired too many people”. Said another way, “We didn’t let enough people go when times were good.” Retention and retention programs, therefore, are the primary cause of RIFs.
“Why do we have layoffs?” Because the retention programs work too well. The idea that great people should be retained in their jobs for a long time is the exact opposite of growth and innovation. Retention breeds seniority and bureaucracy. Innovation requires youth and inexperience.
Digging Into RecruitingBlogs.com V 2.14 5 Recent Things
I have fun at my job. Recently, I’ve been writing about some things that I think are particularly interesting. The sustained downturn is causing innovation in recruiting to explode. I’ve been looking closely at trends and examples.
I have a weird perspective on the ‘future’. I think it’s already here and we are in the process of trying to uncover it. The best descriptions of what’s actually going on sound like science fiction. Our biggest challenge is always trying to see what is right in front of us.
So, my work involves trying to understand the things we are experiencing in a larger context. Some times I get it really right, sometimes I get it wrong. I get it right more often.
Overall, the idea is to deliver these views to readers who want to have their beliefs challenged. It’s boring stuff for someone who wants a pure tactical input. You’ll hardly ever see me write a piece called “How to…” You can get that other places.
* The Twitter Revolution I, II and III
Twitter isn’t what you think it is. The service lays the groundwork for a semantic search engine. The more stuff that gets input, the greater the demand for intelligent search. The Twitter folks have proven an interesting point: collaboration is best facilitated by less functionality rather than more.
* Just Work
A job is the only asset that doesn’t devalue. There’s an emerging movement that takes a different view of work. Instead of the 00s emphasis on position and title, this view is more 19th century. A good job is worth having, engagement passion or not.
* Job Boards Revisited I, II and III
Rumors of the impending death of the job boards are highly exaggerated. With a small bit of adaptation (see Jobvite), they have 30 or 40 years of good life left in them. In the downturn, the number of job boards continues to grow.
* Consolidate and Fragment
Over the coming months and years, we’re going to see a lot of creative destruction. Tons of social networks will get formed and abandoned. Ning resemble a huge shanty-town from some perspectives. Lots of starts rotting on the vines. The early web was just like this
* Novotus 1 and Novotus 2
Mike Mayeux is doing something different. It’s a little unfair to call his project an RPO but that’s the current nomenclature. The enterprise wraps basic recruiting services into functional modules and then sells with a guarantee. It’s revolutionary like one of those jets that works best at speed.
