Does the free market’s creative destruction create more than it destroys? That’s really what the current economic debate raging between Democrats and Republicans – and stunningly between Republicans and Republicans – can be boiled down to. When it comes to economic growth, are we on the defensive or are we on the offensive? Are we expanding or protecting?

Earlier in the year, the President convened an “Insourcing American Jobs Forum.” While creating more American jobs is obviously a good idea, it’s the very defensive nature of the Forum that stands out. “The forum will focus on the increasing trend of insourcing – where companies are bringing jobs back to the United States…” said the White House press release. Whether they meant it or not, the implicit tone here is that we’re not creating new jobs, we’re bringing old ones back.

In a recession existing businesses shed jobs in an effort to cut costs and hoard cash for the lean months ahead. As the economy recovers, they start to add these jobs back. It’s economic churn, not new economic growth. This forum runs the very real danger of just generating churn, not net-new economic growth. Further making my point, the Forum’s business participants are largely if not entirely drawn from existing, large businesses: Ford, DuPont, Otis Elevator, Intel, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, just to name a few.

To move the conversation beyond economic churn, we’re convening a Workforce Congress at the annual HRO Today Forum April 30-May 2 in Washington, DC. During the invitation-only Workforce Congress we’ll convene HR Officers from large and small companies to discuss how we can create a more competitive workforce for our companies, for America, and for the world.

We’re also hosting a debate on “Is outsourcing good for America?” This debate will directly take on the question whether the free market’s creative destruction create more than it destroys.

I hope you’ll share your ideas on the future of capitalism and join this debate. Send me the questions you’d like us to fire off at our debaters – and if you’re up for submitting a “brief” in support of either side of the debate.

Agree with me? Disagree with me? Debate with me at the HRO Today Forum April 30 to May 2, 2012 in Washington, DC. Register before March 16 to save 40%.

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February 9, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Generating New-HRO for the HR-Powered Enterprise

By Faye Holland

As the HRO market branches between those that are deciding and those that are doing, a new breed of HRO is developing. This New-HRO is about enabling organisations to cope with rapid change, uncertainty and complexity. It focuses on one hand on identifying relevant sourcing, services and technology options; and then on the other, the imperative of developing sustainable outsourcing as engagements enter the next wave of development and/or renegotiation.

HR Change Agents need to embrace New-HRO to ensure sustainable growth in the HR-powered enterprise. Like when e-business became business, we are at a stage in the market when outsourcing is just business. We now know that after all the hype, BPO (business process outsourcing) doesn’t solve every ailment – and “one throat to choke” just doesn’t hold up. The original cost saving motivation has been mainly achieved and the technological solutions are evolving creating a new model for those where large scale outsourcing was never an option – it has simply become one of a kit bag of options to HR professionals.

Real HRO is what happens behind the scenes, for example, the patient and painstaking rollout of complex payrolls country after country which reaches far beyond the area of outsourcing. For this reason the ‘O’ today means any combination of optimization, operations, outsourcing, organziation or outcomes to name but a few – so what does the ‘O’ mean to you in the next phase of HRO?

By working with decision makers and influencers that are interested in being HR Change Agents – we know that they strive to improve the business value of HR and who are either:
• reviewing the options,
• on the verge of,
• have just made, or
• are veterans – of large purchasing decisions

These decisions cover a whole array of technology and sourcing options such as Shared Services, Outsourcing, Captive, transformational and re-engineering solutions.

Read HRO Today and HRO Today Global magazines to see how you can become a HR Change Agent – make the right decisions, learn about the options, and maybe even get that next level of promotion by being better informed. Or come and meet us out our 2012 HRO Today Forums where we will look at how HR Change Agents build both New-HRO and sustainable growth into their organization through HR services.

HRO Today Forum North America: http://hrosummits.com/
HRO Today Forum Europe: http://www.hrosummits.com/hrosummiteu/index.php
HRO Today Forum APAC: http://www.hrosummits.com/hrosummitapac/index.php

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February 8, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Jobs Hope

More good news has arrived on the jobs front. Of course, these developments are still graded on a curve. Given the economic trauma of the past three years, and given the enduring misery suffered by those among the under- and unemployed, celebrations should be muted and hope should be conditional.

Still, the creation of more than 200,000 net jobs (seasonally adjusted) last month has brought the official unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, back where it was at the end of 2008. Massive unknowns loom—oil supplies from the Middle East are threatened, the epochal European debt realignment is tenuous, wars are being unwound, and some unanticipated disaster of the man-made or natural variety is always around the corner. And they loom particularly large given the demonstrable fragility of our socio-economic order. But employment and growth have not looked this promising in a long time.

Which presents workforce leaders with a new challenge. The dynamic was captured in September by the “Job Preparedness Index,” a new annual survey conducted by the Career Advisory Board. Some 500-plus hiring managers and 700-plus job seekers were polled.

According to the survey, hiring managers place the highest value on the following skills: strategic perspective, high integrity, global outlook, strong work ethic, dependability, and accountability. Makes sense. Now, 56 percent of job seekers expressed confidence that they know what qualifications are required for employment, and 72 percent of job seekers are confident they know how to present their skills during an interview. Yet only 14 percent of hiring managers reported that “most” or “nearly all” job candidates, over the past three years, have had the skills their company looks for in a potential employee.

But here’s the worst finding. Experience” trumps “eagerness to learn.” Only nine percent of hiring managers reported they would be “extremely” or “very likely” to hire a managerial candidate who lacked the necessary skills but appeared eager to learn those skills on the job. And just 30 percent of job seekers ranked prior experience as the top factor in leading to a desirable job.

This is a major problem. And I fault the supply side (employers) more than the demand side (seekers). I’ve coached a lot of sports teams in my day, and when it came to tryouts and drafting a team, it was always a principle among my fellow coaches that we’d pick athleticism first. Why? Because to the extent the kid in question demonstrated strength or speed or coordination or field savvy, we figured it was our job to channel that raw ability into what we needed on the field.

Our social and commercial order used to work this way, too. Job training programs, apprenticeships, G.I. bills, and the like helped create a path for inexperienced talent to grow into jobs. Now, all I hear is complaints about how the emergent workforce is unskilled or feels entitled or suffers from some sort of collective attention deficit disorder wrought by video-gamed childhoods.

Sorry, it’s not that easy. We need to reforge the social contract on jobs, and that starts with employers. Invest in a longer term proposition. The landscape is shifting fast. Hire accordingly.

We’ll be exploring this and parallel ideas when HRO Today convenes its annual forum—April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. Our Workforce Congress and other sessions will wrestle with the “Job Skills Gap” and how to navigate it. Have a question or idea for the program? Post it below.

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January 31, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

What’s your Opinion on the O?

By Faye Holland

The “O” in HRO has always stood for Outsourcing. However, the issues facing HR Professionals and Change Agents no longer only focus on Outsourcing but how outsourcing (large or small “o” is fine – see blog: http://www.hrotodayforum.com/index.php/2012/01/time-to-change-the-meaning-of-an-o/) is used in conjunction with competitive business practices to build a stronger workforce both on a micro- (at the company) and macro-level (for the whole global/national economy). As a media company at the top of this game, our priority is to provide knowledge to our audience on how to create and maintain a competitive advantage while doing more with less and better in productivity, innovation, and workforce effectiveness/satisfaction.

Even small and medium-sized companies find themselves using a multi-sectored workforce: full-time, contingent, contract, and outsourced staff. Big companies have used these strategies for years. What lessons can they share with smaller companies? What are the latest trends, technologies, and techniques every HR Officer needs to know to keep the company at the forefront?

This month we have been building the programmes for the HRO Today Forum in Washington (April 30-May 2) and Singapore (May 16-17) and working with the advisory committee on the programme for Dublin (November 13-15) and are keen to hear of better practices or new requirements as we keep content level leading-edge.

But before you all start panicking, I’m absolutely not saying the “O” of outsourcing doesn’t exist. As a company we are successful due to the fact that we have a strong editorial and content on that subject. But our tens of thousands of practitioner readers and forum attendees; and our providers, technology firms and advisors relationships demand that we stay ahead of the curve so this is the start of the move to building the “O” and your opinion matters!

So tell me what you think…. What are the latest trends, technologies, and techniques every HR Officer needs to know to keep the company at the forefront?

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January 27, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Jobs Missing

By Dirk Olin

The enduring American jobs crisis will dominate public debate in 2012, whoever emerges from the Republican primaries’ theater of the absurd. Indeed, the debate will rage long after the election. Structural and generational forces are at work that are far more important than the short-term fiscal and programmatic proposals on offer from the candidates.

Pay no attention to Bain Capital this or Solyndra that. What’s at issue are far more pedestrian, but foundational, dynamics: employee engagement, workforce sustainability, and old-fashioned job training.

On those points, consider Apple Inc. A couple of months ago, I noted the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs with a mixture of awe at his brilliance and bewilderment about much of his corporate ethos. Not to put too fine a point on it, the company treated many workers like dirt—both in the corporate headquarters, where a culture of intimidation often obtained and abroad, where the company abjectly ignored Chinese subcontractors who were likely sickened by their working conditions.

As the reins were passed with Jobs’ demise, I expressed my hope that new CEO Tim Cook would find the right practices to grow a healthier Apple.

On that front, two updates. After promising that Apple would not change under his tenure, Cook was almost immediately reported to be reforming promotion and reporting structures. He has also amped up communications with a workforce that he addresses as “Team.” What’s more, he launched the company’s first matching program for employee donations of up to $10,000 to nonprofits. No small change there.

Of equal or greater importance, in January Apple published its first-ever list of company suppliers, addressing issues of both the overworked (some to the point of suicide) and underage employees in Chinese factories. The move represents a blindingly welcome shift in the company’s transparency.

A more intractable problem, however, is one that was detailed in the Jan. 22 Business Section of The New York Times. Headlined “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” the piece explained that the lion’s share of those device’s manufacturing jobs had been offshored. And when, at a dinner a year ago, President Obama asked Steve Jobs straight out why those positions couldn’t be brought back to America, the CEO reportedly replied, “Those jobs are not coming back.”

One reaction to that reality came from Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” she said. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Sorry, but I’m not buying. Companies can be persuaded to act out of enlightened self-interest, but they’re not running their operations pro bono. As other sources explain, the real problems are two-fold. First, and as we will explore in future posts, a corporate and communitarian devotion to job training has all but evaporated in many sectors. Compounding that is globalization’s empowerment of the labor force arbitrageur.

But the remedy for the latter isn’t protectionism. That would be self-defeating. Fixing the former—through an investment in millenials and the emergent workforce—is the only logical and, yes, sustainable path out of these woods.

Which brings us, once again, to the 2012 HRO Today Forum, which will be held April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. On top of the agenda: The Job-Skills Gap.

Come help fill the void. And start by posting your own ideas below: What innovative job training programs have you come across recently?