Today, thousands of people are looking to replace the jobs they used to hold. But it will be harder and harder to find those jobs because they have probably already changed – and can no longer be found.

Managers of successful companies are at the forefront of job re-engineering. They are operating now with fewer employees and learning the importance of hiring the right talent to survive and thrive. They will need better and faster
methods to assess and match jobs with business talent to succeed in an economy of continuous change.

Permanent Changes

While we continue to read daily news of the decline of North America’s traditional 9-5 industrial jobs, we are also witnessing the formation of new 24/7 jobs for the emerging service-based economy. Yet even the experts admit they do not know exactly which jobs will drive tomorrow’s business economy. They are more certain about the type of jobs that will NOT drive it.

Forrester Research Inc., a trend-analysis firm, predicts that 3.3 million U.S. jobs will have transferred overseas by 2015. A majority of these are production jobs that can be done more economically elsewhere. Recent news from a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study reports that the majority of these jobs represent “permanent changes in the U.S. economy and are not coming back.”

Uncertain Direction

However, the economy is fickle and does not appear to favor a single direction in job growth. We have seen the emerging service economy create new jobs, and then quickly destroy them. For example, job opportunities as securities and commodities brokers were driven up by investment-mania for the fateful dot coms of the 90’s. Approximately 69,000 of those jobs have since been eliminated perhaps for good. With the creative application of online technology, jobs in the financial sector continue to evolve and redefine themselves.

Spotlight on Talent

Economic uncertainty and changing job dynamics focus the spotlight directly on employee talent. Companies continue to abandon slower moving products and services while targeting new ones with a downsized workforce. Their select
teams of key employees often work longer hours than ever before to accomplish the equivalent of what used to be multiple jobs. Increased expectations for results demand that managers reexamine and redefine jobs regularly. In fact,
jobs often morph dramatically overnight, forcing a reshuffle of talent and job priorities to meet new challenges.

The good news is that recent surveys show North American companies are beginning to achieve increased productivity with highly leveraged talent, and this has captured management’s attention. Now managers are seeing firsthand how important it is to hire multi-faceted talent that is committed, accountable, resilient and has the specific attributes necessary for success.

Identifying the “Right” Talent!

What is “the right employee talent” for today’s jobs? The answer is not that easy, as it depends on defining the job’s key accountabilities, the company culture, the working environment, and many other variables.

While flexibility and urgency are highly valued skills in reacting quickly to change, steadiness and reliability are equally important in maintaining consistency, stability and quality. A wide range of verified talent within an organization may provide maximum options for handling change. Only through using an effective methodology to accurately assess the unique requirements of evolving jobs can managers make the right decisions on hiring talent for success.

Bottom line: Are you prepared?

The bottom line is that jobs have changed – and the changes are far from over. Your answers to the thought-provoking questions below will reveal how prepared you are at this time to respond to the demands of our rapidly evolving workplace:

• How have your company’s jobs changed?
• How do you identify and select the matching talent those jobs now need -
  and how have you prepared to repeat this process quickly and effectively,
  time and time again?
• How do your abilities rank with your competitors’ abilities in this area?

Plan a strategy now to hire the business talent you need to lead your company through continuous job changes into a successful future.

Better luck next time? Not necessarily – that is, if you continue to select talent the way you always have, hoping that you’ll be luckier next time.

What does the research show about talent “churn”?

Research shows the typical interviewing process is reliable in predicting successful job hires only 14 percent of the time. The 86 percent that don’t work out keeps the vast majority of small business owners going in circles through a self-created revolving door of resumés, applications, hires, and fires.

In turn, company profits literally evaporate due to lapses in staff coverage that result in low productivity, dissatisfied customers, lost business opportunities, continual training expenses, and burnout of their remaining employees who have to pick up the slack.

Negative impact is so serious from continual talent churn, that studies now show it to be a major contributing factor in the demise of most small to medium size businesses. For example, a leading financial institution calculates the minimum hidden cost of replacing a key manager or salesperson at three times the annual salary, and can actually reach as high as ten times depending on such factors as customer fallout.

What’s the real cost of hiring an average versus a top performer?

But there’s another equally important question about hiring costs that most small business owner/managers never even think to ask themselves, namely: What’s the real cost of hiring an average, C-caliber player that gave every impression they were an A-caliber player when they were interviewed? Numerous studies have shown that A-caliber players contribute at least three times more revenue than C-caliber players, and can reach as high as 1000 percent more.

Consider the real world impact of this on a company’s sales:

1. Assume the annual sales volume per average C-caliber salesperson is $100,000.
2. Assume the output of a top A-caliber producer is just the minimum multiple of three times that of the average C-caliber salesperson: 3 X $100,000 = $300,000.
3. The value added by a top performing A-caliber salesperson therefore is $200,000 ($300,000 – $100,000).

How many sales people on your roster right now would qualify as A-caliber players?

How do you know for sure? The results that your top performers produce may only qualify as “average” compared to what your competitor’s top performers produce. What’s the real cost to your company in lost sales for hiring and keeping C-caliber players on your roster?

Considering the negative impact that talent churn and the hiring of “C” caliber players has on your company’s bottom line, what are the options to remedy ineffective hiring practices?

Choose one:
a. Interview more people, faster.
b. Throw all your resources at recruitment.
c. Find and implement a more effective process.

If you chose “c” above, then you are on the right track. Clearly, continuing to hire as you always have, hoping for better luck next time, will not propel your business forward. Since your human resources account for up to 80 percent of your competitive advantage, something has to change. A new approach to identifying and retaining top talent is far overdue.

A new approach

One such approach is on creating a clearer definition of the key jobs your organization has to fill. You will have a much better chance of finding the right fit for a job if you correctly DEFINE THE JOB and then HIRE THE MATCHING TALENT to fill it—a logical approach. The concept is still too new for many businesses to comprehend, as they repeatedly practice talent mismanagement through “fire, ready, aim” instead of “ready, aim, fire!”  Besides, many business owners ask: Is it really possible to measure a JOB and then apply the SAME measurement to TALENT?

Yes, you can do it. You can define jobs and identify matching talent with factual, unbiased measurements to improve the rating on your company’s talent management scorecard. It’s a matter of beginning your next hiring process by assessing the JOB first, and identifying its top 3-5 key accountabilities. The result will be an accurate template for objectively assessing and hiring MATCHING TALENT.

Where most business owners/managers drop the ball

Most business owner/managers have a pretty good understanding of what their ideal candidates must possess in terms of “hard” skills. What few correctly identify, however, are the intangible success factors in the job that accurately differentiate a C-caliber player from an A-caliber player. Instead, they rely on “gut instinct” which has been proven to be notoriously unreliable.

Companies that add this new assessment methodology to their current hiring process put an end to poor hires, and the related drain on their business profits.  Investments made in selecting the right talent for evolving jobs continue to be the most valuable investments in the future success of any business.

And when you consider the return on your investment from hiring an A-caliber player, can you really afford not to do it?  You can greatly increase your “luck” in finding the right person for the job by simply adding a new and measurable “logic” to hiring talent!