Axiom Blog

5 Ways to Beat Google, Apple & Facebook for Top Gen Y Talent

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:39:53 +0000

May 2, 2011

Generation Y technology talent magnets like Google, Apple, and Facebook are seen to be scooping up the best of the best, without even apparently trying that hard. We hear leaders howling, “We can’t beat these guys at attracting and keeping the best talent. They’re threatening our growth. They’re undermining our strategy.”

What can a company that is counting on accelerating growth do against those deep-pocketed competitors? What ways work in appealing to the Generation Y workforce? Is there a way to redefine the battle on your terms to reach Generation Y (those born between 1977 and 2002; also know as Millennials).

If Gen Y employees are part of your technology talent strategy, a recent article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, “How Would the Younger Generation Run Big Business Differently,” offers some surprising insights. What’s striking is how Gen Y talent is genuinely motivated in different ways than other generations, and how practical, creative and mature many of their suggestions are. Much of what’s said in the article resonates with what we’re seeing with our clients in the UK, the US and beyond.

The positive news is that it is far more achievable than you might think to differentiate your organization with a compelling value proposition that attracts top Gen Y talent. Certainly, Google, Apple and Facebook have some inherent advantages, not the least of which is the fact that the people you want to hire are probably already using their products every day. But you can’t let that deter to you if you’re relying on Gen Y talent to help execute your strategy. Here are five ideas to get you started:

Get Tuned In: Be proactive about listening to Gen Y. If some of that talent is already on board, provide them with a way to share their ideas and perspectives. Start thinking like a marketer about ways you can capture information about the needs and expectations of Gen Y talent. For example, ensure you have key people actively participating at campus recruitment events, and find ways to join the job and career conversations on social media networks. Then translate this improved understanding to articulate a compelling sense of purpose, create an amazing work environment, and blur the lines between work and life in a flexible way that benefits both parties.
Soft Stuff Matters: For years organizations have paid lip service to the “soft stuff” like values and culture, while investing the real dollars in “hard stuff” like pay and benefits. While writing a bigger check was often a powerful (if ultimately unsustainable) acquisition and retention strategy for Gen X talent, it's not going to work for Gen Y. As authors Strauss & Howe explain in their powerful book, Millenials Rising, Gen Y are likely to be the Hero generation who solve our current global problems and make the world a better place. They want to build communities, not dominate them. They’re more attracted to big brands with powerful ideas than nation states and jingoistic patriotism. They admire people and organizations that do good, rather than those who just do well for themselves. More like Patagonia and the Toyota Prius, less like Gordon Gecko and “greed is good.” So work with your leaders to educate them about these important generational differences, and help them find ways to foster your organization’s culture and consistently role model and encourage its values.
Cultivate Your Secret Sauce: A critical starting point involves figuring out what’s special and unique about your organization, and how your company’s DNA can be attractive to Gen Y. This is the foundation of your employee value proposition. You can blend both who you are today, and who you want to be in the future to support your vision and business strategy, but it needs to be real. You can’t fake it with Gen Y. They’ve been bombarded with advertising and PR messages since before they could walk, and can smell insincerity a mile off. In our experience defining what makes your organization unique requires merging company and employee perspectives. This means finding common threads from a wide variety of information sources including your strategy, vision, values, rewards philosophy, external stakeholders, engagement surveys, employee turnover and exit interview data, industry benchmarking, and of course input and feedback from people across your organization. Once you’ve perfected your secret sauce, use it to redefine the battle in your favor by offering something different and better, even if that seems almost impossible given the competition. For inspiration think of Apple’s first iPods and the competitors struggling hopelessly for several years to compete with the iPod’s elegant thumb-wheel interface. So who eventually consigned Apple’s thumb-wheel interface to history? That’s right, Apple did. They redefined the battle, again in their favor, with multi-touchscreen technology.
Tell a Great Story: The history of the tech industry the last 50 years is a collection of stories about guys in garages, college dropouts who fulfilled their vision, leaders who stumbled, only to recover and reach even greater heights, and the hubris of former innovators who couldn’t keep pace with relentless change. Once you understand what makes your organization special weave a captivating story that articulates why top talent should join and stay with your organization. Gen Y’ers want to be able to talk with pride about their job when they’re in Starbucks with their buddies, and to explain how their job is helping change the world in some way. Your story will also become your elevator pitch for leaders, line managers, and recruiters, and guide your communications and key messages through advertising and social media.
Keep It Real: Your story is more than words on paper; it’s a promise to your people about the life experience they can expect at your organization. So bringing it to life through your actions, priorities, and investments is really important. For Gen Y this means different things. For example, Gen Y talent tend not to be so focused on upward promotions, but rather in new experiences and learning opportunities. They also expect to be recognized and rewarded for their talent and achievements rather than their tenure and the number of hours they work. They seek out responsibility and empowerment, and need to be allowed to make mistakes in the spirit of innovation. And they believe collaboration and diversity are at the core of innovation, rather than being a source of stalemate and conflict.

If you don’t think Gen Y matters that much either in terms of your talent or customers; keep in mind that they outnumber Gen X by three to one!

In your experience, what’s worked (or hasn’t) when competing with the global talent magnets? And if you’re a Gen Y’er yourself, what do the rest of us need to know about you and your peers?

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Technology

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technology

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Paul Dinan

talent strategy

talent & leadership assessment & development

Four Ways to Keep the Plug on the Oil & Gas Knowledge Drain

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:53:13 +0000

By Traci McCready

April 30, 2012

The looming loss of decades of experience and leadership is not a surprise to those in the energy industry. The recent recession may have forced experienced employees to shelve retirement plans and kept that experience in place temporarily, but the following indicators underscore that the impact of the talent gap was only delayed:

Skills shortages in the oil and gas industry leapt from 5^th to 2^nd on the list of barriers to growth over the next 12 months, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report, “Big Spenders: The Outlook for the Oil and Gas Industry 2012.” The shortage of skills was cited as a key barrier by over a third of respondents.

70% of energy industry execs (globally) believe they will not have enough leadership to meet the industry’s future needs according to a recent report citing the Energy Institute.

More than 50% of current oil and gas employees are estimated to be eligible for retirement in the next 10 years and those with 10 years of experience or more are in very short supply

Despite this inevitable talent gap, few companies have put effective strategies in place to “plug the knowledge drain.” I believe there are four keys to addressing this problem:

Plan your workforce strategically: Most organizations say they have a workforce plan. The real question is, “Do you have a strategic workforce plan or a workforce strategy?” Exercises in simply forecasting headcount lead to blunt interventions at all levels and leave hard dollars and leadership resources misguided in the search for the right talent. Leaders must begin by clearly identifying the key competencies and skills that most affect company performance. Strategic Workforce Planning involves modeling workforce needs against different scenarios of the current and future (internal and external) labor market. Adding scenario-based planning aids in better understanding talent supply and demand dynamics and allows for a more planful, proactive approach that aligns workforce planning to value creation.
Acquire talent intelligently: Recruiting is a two-way street. Companies expect contribution; employees expect fulfillment of their value proposition. Leaders are often unclear about exactly what capabilities and competencies they need to effectively execute against their strategy today and in the future. This leads to targeting the wrong talent sources, hiring the wrong individuals and, eventually, losing employees for not providing the “agreed” experience, not to mention the effects this has on overall company performance. Despite the budget-busting price war for talent in O&G, study after study shows employees consider more than financial remuneration when deciding where to work. Recruiting is most successful when communicating the value and promise of a career, continuous development, and opportunity for the individual to influence their chosen career path. Energy companies need to clearly understand what types of talent they need to drive their business strategy and also understand what those candidates value in an employer. These two in conjunction create a platform for changing the game across the industry, allowing employment conversations to rise above the basic hygiene factors, such as salary and benefits, and force the focus on what is important to both parties
Design for development: Recruiting the right talent is only the beginning. Without a commitment and an organization designed to provide the many and various development opportunities each employee will need to grow and increase contribution to the organization, the promise of career fades and neither the company or the employee benefit. Rigs are complex environments, with real safety and performance concerns for all involved. Moving drillers and leaders from place to place often may not be possible, but better systems of matching opportunities with individual and organizational development needs is crucial to plugging the current knowledge drain and ensuring there is not a reprise. Leaders need to be open and create a platform for career growth, allowing employees to move through the organization, to a new rig or discipline, giving the employee the developmental opportunities he/she needs to advance to the next level in an expedited manner.
Understand, assess, THEN develop leadership: What is leadership? What does it look like? The answer is specific to your industry and also to your company and its strategy. Understanding what leadership competencies, when demonstrated, improve performance is critical to proper development. Leadership is more than technical skill and functional expertise – effective leaders see through multiple lenses to align strategy – organization – talent. Executives must assess the gaps in the important leadership competencies across the talent portfolio and develop current and emerging leaders in the areas of most need and impact to the business. Leadership development needs to be a continuous process that prepares individual to take the next step in their careers before they actually take the step, enabling a more proactive approach to plugging the knowledge drain within your organization.

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Energy

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Lessons from SXSW Interactive: 5 Principles For Developing and Executing Your Strategy

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:22:09 +0000

By Don Ruse

April 19, 2012

One of the great things about living in Austin, Texas is attending SXSW Interactive. "South By," as we natives call it, is an incubator for cutting-edge technologies. Over a period of five days, attendees have the opportunity to meet and hear from the brightest minds in emerging technology.

This year a whole host of speakers discussed the trials and tribulations of starting up their new businesses. Some companies were "fast followers" and others would-be "game changers." All offered products or services that were software-enabled and competed in the highly innovative and rapidly changing worlds of social media, mobile, and data mining and analytics.

What immediately caught my attention as I listened to a myriad of Gen Y founders discuss their businesses is that they craft and re-craft their business strategy almost constantly to adapt to sudden changes in technology, customer needs and wants, and their competitive landscape. These leaders firmly believed that they would live or die based on their strategic agility to set (and re-set) direction in response to the dynamics of their business.

I wondered if the concept of agile software development, exemplified by the now famous Agile Manifesto of 2001, was the basis for how they went about developing and executing their strategy. Talking with some of the presenters in between sessions, I confirmed that this was indeed the case. The principles of agile development definitely shaped how these leaders developed and executed their strategy.

Listening further, two things became very clear: Firstly, These leaders view strategy as an ongoing and iterative process, not an event. Secondly, the following five principles had the most significant implications for developing and executing strategy:

Principle One: "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”

Be maniacal about knowing your customer's wants and needs. Develop your strategy from the customer in and always understand what they value.
Routinely test your strategy with your customer to ensure its relevance and to shape their wants and needs. Use this insight to constantly modify and adapt what you offer to ensure it delivers tangible value that the customer willingly pays for.
Ensure your organization design creates a seamless interface between you and your customers; look for any barriers or filters that could impede the quality and flow of customer insights

Principle Two: "Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage."

Make a fundamental shift in how you do strategic planning. Move from trying to predict the future to being able to quickly adapt to the dynamics of your business environment.
Move away from the classic once-a-year planning process (e.g. STRAP) to a more frequent and routine (monthly) discussion and decision-making process.
Ensure you have in place "early warning" processes to help you identify and act upon changing requirements as soon as possible. Use the information and insights you get from your frequent customer interactions to feed these discussions, decisions, and actions.

Principle Three: "Deliver working software frequently"

As you develop the strategic plan for the introduction of your next product or service, ensure it drives frequent working releases that can be tested by and iterated upon with your customers.
Clarify governance and decision-making processes to improve speed of decision-making in order to improve your speed to market
At the end of each iteration, review progress with your customer and re-evaluate priorities with a view to optimizing performance and ensuring alignment with customer needs and company goals.

Principle Four: "Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project."

Develop your strategy through close and iterative collaboration from the field back up to corporate (vs. top down). Focus on the discussion and debate, not the documentation.
Establish seamless communications and a closed communications loop between your market-facing organization and those that develop and make your product or deliver your service to ensure you can quickly understand and act upon marketplace and customer messages.
Constantly look for and remove organizational barriers that slow the time it takes from idea to customer response. Purposely design in the collaboration needed to develop and deliver products and services that exactly meet the customer's needs

Principle Five: "Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done."

Get the right people involved in developing and iterating your strategy -- those closest to the customer and most capable of understanding how to adapt and evolve your products/services to meet the their changing needs. (My bet would be that this may not be limited to strategic planning group or your senior management team!).
Developing strategy is often about asking two questions: "What If..?" and "So What..?" Ensure that those involved in defining strategy have the license to ask and answer these questions without fear of damaging their reputation and career.
Make sure your strategic plan identifies the key players that are absolutely necessary to successfully execute it based on their capabilities, passion, and motivation -- and not just on their title or formal scope of responsibility

The days of being able to fully define, test and implement the classic five-year strategy have passed. The dynamic and chaotic nature of our social, political, and business environments and the almost maddening pace of innovation no longer afford us the opportunity to operate in a predictable world where we can opine in the ivory tower about our predictable futures. Being agile and adaptive are essential in how you develop, refine, and execute your strategy--regardless of whether you are a startup or a venerable old company.

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Three Reasons Why Energy Employees are Gaining an “Unfair Advantage”

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:34:01 +0000

By Traci McCready

April 9, 2012

The Hays Oil & Gas Global Salary Guide 2012 quantifies what a lot of us in the Energy industry are feeling. When it comes to talent, it’s a seller’s market. Consider these findings from the responses of more than 14,400 employers and employees worldwide.

Over the next 12 months, one in three employees expect a salary increase of more than 10%. That’s on top of recent significant wage increases; 49.5% of employees had earned a salary increase of more than 5% in the last 12 months.

“Over a quarter of those employers surveyed expect an increase in staffing levels by 10% or more.” Another 25% expect that staffing levels will increase between 5 and 10%”

“In 2012, the pool of available talent has diminished significantly and this has led many companies to employ new talent and seek to retrain.”

Beyond the economic laws of supply and demand I think there are three factors contributing to a job market where employees often have the upper hand.

1. Companies are competing on the wrong playing field -- The price war is getting intense and companies are blowing through their talent budgets. We’ve all heard the stories of highly compensated hourly workers jumping to new opportunities for a dollar an hour increase, only to be lured back for another dollar. But, as the Hertzberg Motivation Theory contends, it’s not salary and benefits that drive high motivation; it is actually job satisfaction and commitment. Employers need to re-examine what employees really want and what they have to offer that differentiates them from their competitors.

2. You can’t distinguish the players without a scorecard – Companies aren’t building any real differentiation that might attract the most sought-after employees. With a few notable exceptions, energy company employee value propositions (EVP) sound strikingly familiar. Most highlight their compensation and benefits packages but say nothing about the interesting and differentiating aspects of their organization. If you’ve been in the industry in Houston for some time, perhaps you can rely on the grapevine to know what’s going on at various companies. But the engineering graduate from Carnegie Mellon or a young driller who has spent the last two years on a rig in a regional drilling office needs more information to make informed career decisions.

3. “Who’s on First?” The misalignment of strategy, organization and talent – HR departments are running on a talent treadmill, being asked by one department to add more contractors and by another to hire more full-time employees, running faster than ever without really knowing where they or the company are headed. Just like the old Abbott and Costello baseball comedy routine, the problem is a lack of communication and alignment. For the HR team – and the people they’re responsible for hiring -- that means developing a clear understanding of how the company’s strategy is connected to their roles and the execution of their day to day work.

A small group of senior energy industry executives and I will be examining answers to these issues during the Offshore Technology Conference in a few weeks. Here are the details:

An Axiom Energy Roundtable

Unfair Advantage: Why the Talent Shortage Threatens Your Strategy, and What Energy Companies Can Do About IT

Tuesday, May 1st

8:00 am – Registration

8:30 am to 10:00 am -- Breakfast and discussion

Hotel Zaza

5701 Main St., Houston (in the Museum District)

You can reserve your seat at this exclusive event by contacting my colleague, Ms. Anna Sobieski, (asobieski@axiomcp.com). Or call her at 312-523-2183.

We also invite you to complete our brief “Alignment Survey.” We will review the aggregate results at the breakfast meeting (individual results will remain confidential) to benchmark how energy companies are coping with the talent shortage.

What's your perspective on the energy labor market these days?

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Energy

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Are You Ready for a Recovery?

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:14:20 +0000

By Garrett Sheridan

March 29, 2012

I hope your organization is starting to feel the wind in your sails. The Economist‘s March 17^thcover story notes “tantalising signs of good news in the world economy.” The latest issue of Time touts six unconventional economic indicators that suggest the recovery is for real.

We are looking at the future with cautious optimism and so are more and more of our clients. Certainly the senior executives we’re talking with are turning their attention towards growth.

Getting blindsided in a downturn is tough enough. But getting caught on the wrong end of the curve during a recovery can be just as frustrating. If your sales force isn’t prepared to jump on an increase in demand; if you’re playing catch-up in chasing down new talent you need do drive growth; or seeing your high-potentials being courted by competitors, it’s time to reexamine your strategy and execution capabilities.

Our Axiom Alignment Survey is a good place to start that process. The online survey is part of our research into understanding how companies align their strategy, organization design, and their talent to achieve greater results.

The multiple-choice questions take less than seven minutes to complete. In return for completing the survey your confidential responses will immediately generate a high-level report identifying opportunities for improvement and questions to consider in building greater alignment.

The survey is even more powerful when you and at least four of your colleagues take the Alignment Survey. When you and your associates provide us with their company e-mail addresses, we will prepare a comparative analysis of your combined responses. The analysis will show to what extent your team is aligned and identify gaps that might be undermining your organization’s performance – while keeping your individual responses confidential. A form to forward the survey to your colleagues is available once you complete the survey.

I think you’ll find taking the quick survey worthwhile and would love to hear your reaction to the findings the survey generates.

Until then, let’s hope the prognosticators are right and you’re ready to ride the next wave.

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Organization Design: What is With Our Obsession With Boxes and Lines?

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:57:22 +0000

By Karen Jansen and Don Ruse

March 15, 2012

Have you ever wondered why business leaders are so obsessed with redrawing organization charts when they want to improve company performance? We are amazed, and frankly disappointed, with this untempered urge given the countless restructurings and reorganizations that have failed to achieve their intentions and, in many situations, ended up destroying shareholder value. Think Robert Nardelli and Home Depot or Leo Apotheker and HP.

Instead of resorting to boxes and lines, we think business leaders should heed the words of the famous American architect, Louis Sullivan. Back in 1896, Sullivan provided business leaders with the wisdom, and the key, to designing their organizations for sustained success:

"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law"

So what can we as business leaders learn from Mr. Sullivan? Before you embark on restructuring remember -- Form Follows Function. It always has and always will. If you want to drive sustainable improvement in your business, you must begin by understanding its function, a.k.a, its mission and strategy. Once this is well defined and understood, your efforts should be directed at aligning your organization's design and talent to most effectively deploy your strategy. Don't fall prey to your childhood fascination with drawing boxes and lines -- it is but one element of organization design and oftentimes the last element you should evaluate and modify. Apply Sullivan's wisdom and consider using the following steps to align your strategy, organization, and talent for success.

Clarify the value drivers of your strategy to understand the key levers to achieving it. Take a hard look at discerning the most critical drivers and avoid the temptation of identifying everything, including the kitchen sink, as creating value.
Assess your current organization design analytically and holistically to pinpoint what is limiting your ability to unlock value. Remember to always "start with the work" to understand if your core and support business processes are delivering the results you need and expect. Don't stop there: take a hard look at how you measure performance, gather and share information, and govern and make key decisions. Based on this, determine the changes in business processes, metrics, information flows, and governance needed to successfully execute your strategy.
Evaluate how your current structure enables or impedes the performance of your core and support business processes, the flow and quality of information needed to get the work done, the speed and quality of decision-making, and (don't forget!) the degree to which your structure (dis)engages the hearts and minds of your workforce. (Think Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management -- a great model for employee disengagement!). Use this insight to make informed and targeted changes in your structure to fully enable and engage your organization.
Take a hard look at your people and your talent management processes and ask yourselves some tough questions: No kidding, do I have the right people, in the right place, with the right skills? Am I able to attract and retain the best talent? Is my organization a " talent factory" that develops the talent I need to run my business? Do I really manage performance? If your answers are unsatisfactory, make the needed changes in your management processes and practices to ensure you have number, type, and quality of people your business needs.
Routinely measure and fine-tune your design. Chances are that your initial decisions will not play out exactly as you had hoped given the dynamics of your organization and the environment in which you operate your business.

Remember Sullivan's words of wisdom -- form follows function -- and resist the urge to simply re-draw a chart or change reporting relationships to solve your organization's woes. A parting question for you to ponder and share and thoughts on: Do you think today's CEOs and in particular, American CEOs, have the capability, patience, and ego to follow embrace Sullivan's wisdom?

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Aligning Talent and Strategy in an Era of Uncertainty

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:23:13 +0000

By Aaron Sorensen

March 5, 2011

Business leaders strive to find the most optimal response to adapt their workforces to changing business conditions, but unfortunately, most companies react too slowly, overreact or are too cautious. Getting it just right is very rare.

Business conditions can change on a dime and industries can morph over the span of months. Sometimes companies fail to hire enough talent or the right talent in response. In these cases, customers demand more products or services than the workforce can deliver. As a result, companies lose revenue, miss project milestones, which can erode the brand, and face pressure to fill roles with sub-optimal talent.

Conversely, when companies overreact, they often over hire. The capabilities of the workforce do not align with the needs of the business. Companies experience margin reduction, internally-driven staffing pressure, the potential for work-staff mismatches and layoffs that stifle staff engagement and negatively impact the employment brand.

Yahoo! reacted sluggishly to changes in their industry. The founders were brilliant entrepreneurs, but failed to cultivate the workforce they needed to respond to the transformative revolution of the Internet search business. Yahoo didn’t anticipate its future talent needs in battle with fast-moving competitors like Google and Facebook. By the time Yahoo caught on, they had fallen behind in the competition for talent.

Some companies overreact in the short-term due to poor visibility into future talent demand or a reactive workforce strategy. Take the airline industry as an example. Many of the carriers cut their workforces drastically after the devastating 9/11 attacks. They then found themselves scrambling to meet business demand when people kept flying and business travel bounced back.

Caterpillar adopts a cautious workforce strategy that relies on contingent workers and has been conservative about growing its long-term talent portfolio. To their credit, this strategy has served the business well, especially during the recession and as demand has picked up. Time Warner is another example of a company that uses a cautious approach. Rather than being first to market in new technologies by growing talent and capabilities internally, which poses significant risks, the business has plucked talent from other competitors and industries to build out their capabilities as they transition from print to digital.

The lost opportunity of not being first to market can cripple most businesses. Lucky for Time Warner it has the size and brands to buy versus build key talent.

“Optimal alignment” where talent demand and supply are aligned is ideal, but often unheard of. CACI International, a $3B government contractor that provides professional and IT services to support defense and civilian agencies is one of the rare few that gets is just right. Also, how Goldman Sachs shifted its core business when the merger and IPO market plummeted in the wake of 911 is evidence that the investment bank deserves credit for excelling in this area as well.

What Drives Disconnects between Talent Supply and Business Demand?

A lack of clarity into the future of the business environment and focus on the relationship between strategy and talent often drives disconnects between workforce demand and supply. While you can’t predict the weather, you can begin to plan for both stormy days and brighter futures by asking some forward thinking questions right now.

For example, what are the leading indicators that portend the possibilities for the future of our business? What is the range of possible outcomes that we could encounter based on this information? What is the likelihood that these outcomes will come to fruition? What are the implications of these outcomes and how do we adapt? What’s the worst case scenario? What’s the best case scenario?

Adjusting talent supply to account for business demand when twists and turns send you spinning in a different direction isn’t impossible if you plan accordingly in the present for a range of possible outcomes in the future.

If you want to learn more about how you can apply scenario planning to strategic workplace planning to pivot gracefully with the right talent pool when the unexpected happens, I’ll be leading a seminar for HR.com: “Applying the Power of Scenario Planning to Strategic Workforce Planning” Please plan to join me. In the meantime, I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Simply leave them in the comment box.

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Are We Really Ready for the Return of Manufacturing?

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:48:42 +0000

By Don Ruse and Karen Jansen

March 9, 2012

We have been reading with great interest the increasing number of stories about the return of American manufacturing jobs from offshore. A Manufacturing Institute/Deloitte survey released in late 2011 reports that American manufacturers cannot fill as many as 600,000 skilled positions – including machinists, operators and craft workers. The latest annual manufacturing talent survey conducted by Manpower Group reveals that 52% of US employers are having difficulty filling mission-critical positions, particularly skilled trades and machinists.

As business people, we understood the decisions many US companies made to offshore their production. But, as Americans, it saddened us to see the devastating impact these decisions had on our economy and our middle class. While we are excited to see the slow and steady return of jobs, we question whether the nation is really ready for the return of manufacturing to the US.

The migration of manufacturing began several decades ago with the first relocations across the border to the maquiladoras in Mexico and then to Asia, and in particular China -- now known as "the world's workshop." The devastation to our middle class way of life and loss of our historical manufacturing might has been well documented. What gained little attention was the impact offshoring had on the infrastructure that enabled and supported America's manufacturing prowess. When the jobs went offshore, away went the educational programs offered by public and private education providers and the training and development programs many companies had in place to grow manufacturing talent. It is only now that we are experiencing the implications of these decisions.

Companies such as Ford, GE, and Caterpillar, as well as many small US manufacturers, are now realizing that the cost difference between the US and China is not so great any more. Recent studies by the ReShoring Initiative, a group of companies and trade associations trying to bring back jobs to the US, show that the difference in the total cost of ownership between China and the US is only 12%. In some industries, the US actually showed a 22% positive cost advantage!

As these companies re-patriate their production, they are running headlong into the realities wrought by their previous decisions to offshore. The decline of manufacturing and its impact on manufacturing talent infrastructure resulted in a "lost generation" of qualified manufacturing talent. The 12 million manufacturing workers who survived the migration offshore are now graying at a rapid pace. This one-two punch has created a talent shortage that threatens to choke the resurgence of American manufacturing if not addressed by both companies and government.

So what should manufacturing companies do to ensure they have the manufacturing talent they need? We believe companies should take the following actions to initially minimize, and over the longer term alleviate, the manufacturing talent shortage.

Rapidly (re)establish and scale your internal training and development programs targeted on the critical manufacturing skills your company needs. You can't wait for our education system to fill the gap so it's critical that you invest and purposely leverage your current workforce to re-build these programs. Consider enrolling your retirees in the cause and engage their services in teaching the next generation. Bring your offshore talent onshore to train and develop your local workforce. Triage the skill sets you need and focus your initial efforts on those that are most critical to your operation.
Establish or refresh partnerships with education providers, starting with local high schools, and co-invest (time, people, and money) to influence and shape education and training programs. Take lessons from Cisco and Microsoft from the dot.com boom. Both forged partnerships with high schools and vocational schools and influenced the curriculums to teach the next generation of IT technicians. They were able to attract the best and brightest who graduated because of their active involvement in these programs. Refresh your college relations programs with targeted institutions that educate and train critical manufacturing and engineering talent to influence curriculums and establish your company as a "first choice" employer.
Leverage your status as a job creator to influence local, state, and federal government investment. Stimulating job creation is "job number one" for any politician these days. Combine this with the patriotic aspects of re-establishing our manufacturing might and middle class and you have a level of influence that manufacturing companies have not had in quite a while. Use that status to shape investments in education and job training to support the development of the next generation of manufacturing talent.
Ensure your company is a "talent magnet". The war for manufacturing talent is not going to end anytime soon. It's essential you take a hard look at the employee value proposition your company offers your people to ensure you can get and keep the number, type, and quality of manufacturing talent you need to run your operation. This is especially important when recruiting the next generation from the ranks of Gen Y. Old stereotypes of the assembly line coupled with the excitement that working in cutting-edge technology brings has created a perception that manufacturing is not a "cool" place to work.

EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION

There are positive signs that the demise of American manufacturing was prematurely pronounced. The "offshore advantage" is rapidly dissipating while the benefits of "made in America" are being rediscovered. While there are many challenges to overcome, the shortage of talent is definitely at the top of the list. We would appreciate hearing from you about your talent challenges and what you are doing to overcome them.

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Manufacturing

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Three Lessons from a Successful Strategic Planning Process at the Association of Corporate Counsel

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:02:59 +0000

By Kate Richardson and Juan Pablo González

February 28, 2012

Congratulations to the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). The world’s largest network of in-house counsel, representing more than 29,000 members employed by over 10,000 organizations, is embarking on a new strategic plan. Axiom Consulting Partners is proud to have helped ACC execute this successful strategic planning effort.

Veta Richardson, President and CEO of ACC, describes the effort in an interesting story posted on www.law.com. It’s worth reading to learn how a new leader made it an early priority to engage and build strategic alignment among a diverse, global constituency.

“Our strategic plan charts the direction for ACC’s growth and continued success over the next five years,” says Veta. “We are happy we partnered with Axiom to develop this plan because they demonstrated a disciplined (and flexible) approach, creativity, and a real interest in understanding what makes us unique,” Veta noted.

Having had the privilege of working alongside Veta and ACC’s leadership, we see three best practices that other organizations can apply to their own strategic planning efforts.

1. Focus on Key Drivers of Value

We partnered with ACC to design a strategic planning approach that reflects their specific needs as a successful, membership association. Rather than applying a traditional “outside-in” approach to strategic planning focused on external scans and competitor analyses, ACC chose an “inside-out” approach that focused on understanding how they create value for members. During the strategic planning process, the critical capabilities that support ACC’s ability to attain its mission were identified and mapped into a “value tree.” This is a tool we at Axiom use in our strategy work to visually represent how an organization creates value and then map the capabilities, processes, activities and initiatives required to be successful.

In ACC’s case, the three key value drivers identified were: 1) prominent market leadership; 2) member satisfaction and retention; and 3) organizational stability. For a commercial enterprise those drivers might be profitable revenue growth, expense management, customer satisfaction, or product excellence. For ACC, these key value drivers provided the foundation for the strategic plan and the value tree will also serve as a critical tool to help prioritize new and ongoing strategic initiatives over the next five years.

2. Welcome Lots of Engagement

Creating clarity and alignment regarding the key strategic priorities for an organization can require significant effort. ACC’s strategic planning effort was designed to engage members and other key stakeholders in several different ways. ACC was fortunate that more than 4,100 members shared their input through an online survey, 55 members participated in focus groups and 16 members representing six countries took part in in-depth interviews. This valuable input from members helped to ensure that a broad range of perspectives were considered and set the stage for buy-in by the broader membership.

“Our strategic planning process incorporated unprecedented levels of member feedback,” said Veta. “Having input from our members allowed us to develop a strategic plan that addresses their specific needs.”

3. Keep Sight of Implementation

ACC is now preparing to implement the new five-year strategic plan in October, the start of their 2013 fiscal year. Nine distinct and specific key strategies, organized by three strategic themes, will be the focus of the implementation effort. More details of these strategic themes are available on ACC’s website. On an annual basis, ACC Staff will identify specific Operating Objectives that describe how the organization will advance the strategy each fiscal year. No doubt there will be some calibration along the way.

ACC acknowledges that “success will require prioritizing some needs over others…” because of the diversity of its membership. But their strategy is more than a static document; it’s the roadmap that will guide ACC to continue to create value for its members.

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Biz TV Canada Features Axiom's Garrett Sheridan on Shockproof Strategies

dmoon@axiomcp.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:15:49 +0000

by David Moon

February 27, 2011

If you're still feeling uncertain about the economy, the Biz TV Canada interview today with Axiom's Garrett Sheridan provides some practical ideas and examples for successfully managing through tough times. Click here to see the interview.

Garrett, co-author of Shockproof: How to Hardwire Your Business for Lasting Success, talks about how difficult decisions by CEOs at Sterling Commerce and Juicy Couture paid off in the long run.

He explains why it's so important for the HR department to break out of the requisition model of filling orders for new talent and get ahead of the demand for the skills that will drive strategy and deliver results.

And he talks about the 5 lenses that leaders must look through if they hope to maintain alignment between strategy, organization and talent.

If you haven't read Shockproof yet, watching the 9-minute interview is a great introduction to concepts in the book.

http://bit.ly/AxiomBizTVCanadaShockproof

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