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Know-how, innovation and experience constitute the main advantages that organizations can have over their competitors. The most talented employees drive these advantages.

Therefore talent management should focus on the organization’s talent: the most skilled and experienced individuals. Attracting, developing and retaining talent is fundamental to a company remaining ahead of its competition.

Caroline Mancioppi, Author

Many studies* are forecasting a shortage of talents for the near future. One of the main reasons is the demographical trend happening in the developed countries. The World Economic Forum has researched this in depth: “To sustain economical growth, by 2030 the United States will need to add more than 25 million workers and Europe will need to add more than 24 million employees… almost all industries and countries will require sizeable increases in the percentages of highly educated people in their workforces”**.

As a consequence talent management is becoming a growing concern for HR professionals. A holistic approach to talent management should target on finding and attracting the best talent in the market with a superior talent acquisition tool kit: talent sourcing, employer branding, headhunting, talent pools, referrals etc (a talent acquisition strategy can be seen as an answer to the “War for Talents”), on the other side, it needs a talent strategy around training and development to train, coach and mentor existing talent (referred to as “Make talents, not War”).

In reality both strategies have to go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. If you are able to attract good talent, but cannot retain it your recruitment will be like a hamster on a treadmill. And if you spend a lot of money on training and development but are not able to attract the right talent your talent management strategy will not blossom and will suffer.

For more information: www.serendi.com

*Some of the studies on Talent Gap are:

• “Global Talent Risk” World Economic Forum survey 2011,
• “Creating People Value 2011″ The Boston Consulting Group
• “Employing the next generation” Future Work Forum

** Global Talent Risk

• Seven Responses, by the WEF in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group

If talent management is executed correctly it can have a strategic impact on an organization. Good talent management involves much more than simply “attracting, developing and retaining” talent.

The Human Resources function is a patchwork of several specialty functional areas of expertise each requiring a solid understanding and discipline. These functional areas are typically considered to be:

• Workforce & Succession Planning (Talent Attraction & Recruiting)
• Performance Management (Learning & Development)
• Compensation & Benefits

To manage talent successfully, all theses silos need to be fully integrated and have to work together.

Caroline Mancioppi, Author

At first Workforce and Succession Planning defines future talent needs by quantity and qualifying needs according to the business strategy of an organization. Performance Management delivers an overview of the already existing talent while Talent Acquisition and Recruiting should close the identified gaps in the “Talent map”. Talent Acquisition should also include areas like Employer Branding. As a best practice it is highly recommended that companies use the support of an RPO firm for their Talent Acquisition considering the specialized nature and expertise RPO providers use for finding the best external talent in a competitive market.

Learning and Development programs should coach and train existing talent to become the future leaders of an organization who are able to use their talent to deliver excellence in performance.

In line with all of these programs there has to be an effective compensation policy. High performance talent requires an adequate compensation package which demonstrates that their commitment and accomplishments (achieved results) is also being acknowledged through monetary benefits.

For more information: www.serendi.com

Employee on-boarding is the very last step of most of the organizations’ recruitment processes.

Knowing that the first 18 months of work is the most vulnerable period to leave for new hires and a third of the newly hired managers fail at their job or role*, employee on-boarding should not be underestimated. It has indeed, many positive impacts on the following:

• new hire performance on the job
• employee engagement and satisfaction
• speed to competency

As a matter of fact, on-boarding programs also help increase the visibility of new hires, as well as internal communication with them. Moreover due to enhanced employee engagement we can often observe improved customer satisfaction out of it.

Following are the 10 characteristics to gather in order to reach an effective employee on-boarding and be able to improve the above mentioned elements:

1. On-boarding Processes should align, assimilate, integrate and transition new employees.
2. Programs should work towards building relationships between new hires and their peers or experienced colleagues.
3. On-boarding should be tailored to specific job positions.
4. You should be able to demonstrate the value of on-boarding to the organization in terms of employee speed to competency and retention.
5. Each on-boarding should last a defined period of time.
6. It should be a personalized interactive experience.
7. It should focus on integrating and socializing employee into the organization’s culture.
8. It should be available to all new employees.
9. During on-boardings regular communication should be applied in simplified workflows.
10. There should be a managerial involvement in each on-boarding experience

More information under: www.serendi.com

More and more companies invest in online communication tools to trigger candidates’ attention and to ease their application process. However, demands of user candidates are high and internet techniques constantly progressing.

Potentialpark, the research institute specialized in employer branding, HR communication and application processes, has published the results of its 2011 research conducted in Germany through the response of 3,064 graduate students and young professionals (representing top business schools, universities and technical institutions). This enabled the gathering of many relevant data.

Caroline Mancioppi, Author of this article

It has been revealed that applying online is common but not necessarily enjoyable. Few companies offer an application system as smooth as their career website. As a consequence, competition amongst employers to offer the best candidate experience has begun. In reality, most of career websites are overloaded and impersonal, with application forms that are too technical. In order to end this trend, companies are implementing new strategies aiming at creating a real bond with candidates. Candidates have high expectations of career websites. They must contain all necessary information without being overly lengthy or redundant. They should be unique and entertaining without looking like a PR campaign, but still be credible and realistic. Technically, they should be intuitive and open for networking through platforms such as Linkedin and Xing, etc. Their application systems must have quick and easy to fill questionnaires which also help the candidates present their unique skills and strengths.

Two approaches exist when creating career websites. The traditional one focuses on information with examples, testimonials, etc. and presents direct access to job listings from every single page within the site. This is the case for ThyssenKrupp Germany, which has the best ranked career website according to this research.

The second approach is the innovative one. It aims at re-inventing how career websites work impressing the candidate at first sight, appealing to their emotions and forging a relationship to dialog with the candidate. Links to social and professional networks are to be found in this approach inviting the visiting candidate to join the employer’s community. However, this approach has drawbacks in terms of intuitiveness and information flow. Nevertheless, the traditional approach will not last forever.

Employers experiment currently with both kinds of career websites. In the near future, we can expect a combination of both approaches: traditional and innovative, with career websites which are informative, intuitive and offering access as well as dialogue within the employers’ community.

To access more information on the study, visit the Serendi page with this LINK.

Measuring the quality of hire has gained in importance over the last few months. Well, this is not a surprise, as investments in recruitment are significantly growing due to the talent shortage.

However defining the right metrics to measure the long term success of a recruitment campaign is hard. It really depends on what the company is trying to measure and what is defined as important. Is having an increased retention in the first 12 months of new employees a sign of an improved quality of hire? If time to productivity decreases, are you improving the quality of hire? Is the ability to fill skills gaps also an indicator of quality? There is no answer to the question “what is the best metric to measure quality of hire?”, as it could be all of the above mentioned.

Caroline Mancioppi, Author of this article

We find mainly two kinds of metrics: the pre-hire metrics (also called “quality of candidate metrics”) and the post-hire metrics (“Quality of hire metrics”). Improving the quality of candidates is the earliest stage which is part to the talent acquisition strategy contributing to reach a good quality of hire. Indeed, newly hired employees whose profiles and expectations did not entirely match the job description are more likely to leave the company.

To help you measure your quality of hire, here are some post-hire metrics that you should take into consideration:

• Post-hire assessments: nearly one half of companies conduct new hire assessments after 90 days.
• Hiring manager satisfaction: satisfaction surveys such as 360° Feedbacks can also be conducted after 90 days.
• Performance ratings: such as supervisor ratings of performance, time to reach expected performance levels, 3-month or 6-month performance measures.
• Candidates satisfaction: which benchmarks recruiter performance and also ensures that candidates are satisfied with the hiring process.
• New hire turnover rates: according to research, one of eight new hires leave the job within the first 12 months.

Not one of these alone can measure quality of hire. However, these metrics overlap with other HR issues: where do we stop measuring quality of hire and realize that we are measuring employee engagement?

For further information: www.serendi.com

The affiliation with the association of personnel service providers, swissstaffing, gives the guaranty that personnel services strictly comply with the minimum standards of personnel consulting, personnel recruiting, human resources management and temporary work. An ethically correct provision of services and a positive view of humankind are important. swissstaffing – a good cause. An important partnership between employees, economy and politics.

The Association of Personnel Service Providers of Switzerland was founded in 1968 as the Association of Businesses for Temporary Work, SVUTA. The goal of the new employers’ association was the representation of the industry’s interests, but also the ensurance of competent services for the fast growing demand for temporary employees and flexible work opportunities. At the beginning of the 1990s, the association opened up to private personnel recruitment companies and thus provided the basis for the consolidation with the “sister association” VPS, the association for personnel consultants in Switzerland, which was finalized on January 22, 1998. With the simultaneously occurring name change to VPDS, the general assembly documented the broad spectrum of services that is provided by the members of the HR section. During the general meeting in 2006, members decided to replace VPDS, which was lacking an identifying quality and clarity, with swissstaffing. The members operate in the following areas:

• Personnel consulting, personnel administration, accounting, payroll and tax services
• Service lending, employment services, executive search consulting
• Personnel services, outplacement
• Temporary work and other HR services

As an employers’ association, swissstaffing represents the concerns of its members in public. It aims to promote the joint interests of its members during the exchange with authorities and other associations.

swissstaffing guarantees its market partners, business clients and job seekers transparent, high-quality and professional services of its members due to clearly defined standards.

Audits conducted by external bodies ensure a consistent implementation of ethical principles.

Audits conducted by external bodies ensure a consistent implementation of ethical principles. swissstaffing is actively involved in the further development of human resources management (HRM) and regularly offers industry-specific continuing education classes. With industry-relevant analyses, swissstaffing is committed to emphasizing the economic and social value of the services offered by its members.

www.swissrecruiting.com

www.swissstaffing.ch

www.jobs-in-switzerland.com

It is a city which attracts highly qualified individuals from all over the world.

The trinational metro city of Basel has a lot to offer as a high-performance Euro district.

The city of Basel is the centre of North West Switzerland. This unique border city has Germany and France as direct neighbours and is located in the midst of Central Europe. It offers interesting job opportunities for well-qualified High Potentials.

Basel’s reputation as a cultured, ecological, progressive, international and integrative cultural, educational and economic metropolis extends well beyond Europe. It combines small town advantages such as manageability and familiarity with city benefits like amplitude, depth of choice and diversity. The city of Basel, located on the border with the two EU countries of Germany and France, combines Switzerland’s characteristic location advantages – such as exceptionally well qualified manpower, low taxation, an excellent infrastructure, a very high quality of life – with proximity to the most important markets. With its central location the metro city of Basel provides optimal accessibility for international companies, be it by air, rail, road or via the waterways. The many well-qualified professionals from the nearby South Baden and Alsace areas make personnel recruitment especially rewarding.

The large national and international concerns within the pharmaceutical and chemical industries make up the region’s economic backbone. These companies owe their international success to their high degrees of innovative energy. The metro city of Basel is one of today’s most significant international biotech locations and an important Life Sciences centre.

The ancient city of Basel is flawless, robust, youthful and dynamic.

PKS offers job opportunities!

With its common borders shared with Germany and France, Switzerland’s European city offers unlimited and appealing professional opportunities for High Potentials from all over the world. The sophisticated, outgoing and cosmopolitan TriRhena Region has a lot to offer in the way of quality of life. A city and a region which take a hold of you.

• Searching for High Potentials? We will help you!
• City of Basel (The official english page of the city of Basel)
• Succesfully relocated? My Town 4 You will comfort your stay
  

Human beings have become obsolete as mere production units. They have rather turned into guiding spirits of modern work processes with sustained added value and appreciations.

Human beings have become obsolete as mere production units.

The corporate and economic significance of HR departments is often heavily disputed. Many HR managers are not part of either the extended or the actual general management. However, a strategically smart, competent orientation of personnel recruitment and a future-oriented human resources management are critical key factors for assuring a company’s existence.

The complexity of interpersonal interactions increases steadily. It is not enough anymore to simply find the right professionals that meet the hard factors. In addition, soft factors like the ability to work in a team, to adapt, willingness to develop and social compatibility take up more and more room in decision-making processes. If Human Resources Management (HRM) isn’t all that important, personnel search, screening and selection can simply be left to mere chance. The savings in time and money will surely be dedicated to all future problems. The costs increase vastly. PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AG assists many HR managers, and also general managers, in their search for the right HR experts.

The more time passes, the more dominantly Human Resources Management (HRM) is confronted with a paradigm. The so-called Human Capital Management raises its claim. Corporate managements and stakeholders want to learn more about how the intangible assets of well qualified employees are balanced in the total valuation. The deeper cause for this new appreciation of employees does not lie in altruistic reasons. The working world is undergoing fundamental changes.

There are no more lifelong guarantees for employers and employees. The markets have become too fragile, too volatile and too agile. Long gone are the days of adhering to iron market-ideological traditions and dogmata. Job markets open up, they change radically within a short period of time and highly skilled High Potentials move as present-day nomads from continent to continent.

The global competition for attractive job markets increases continuously.

The global competition for attractive job markets increases continuously. Young, but dynamic economies, too, have clearly realized that excellent social and economic basic conditions attract skilled professionals. The value of the highly skilled expertise in combination with intellectual and social competence of knowledge bearers is ever increasing. Special knowledge and special skills become attractive assets that can be match-deciding for the economic development of businesses. Complex knowledge, which is constantly adjusted to new findings, is a valuable resource that is much sought-after and always exposed to many temptations. To a larger extent, Personnel search, recruitment, screening and selection have to be accompanied by personnel fostering, promotion and sustainment. The business expenses, the high subsequent costs and the considerable process-controlled structural and fundamental damages of an extraordinarily high employee turnover are still massively underestimated. Negative staff changes cause a noticeable delay and a painful stop of all corporate development and healthy growth, which might have a big impact and cast a shadow on the overall performance of the general management. A lack of personnel or employing the wrong or poorly skilled personnel can be just as exasperatingly inhibiting as having unsatisfied, exploited or demotivated personnel. Modern Human Resources Management works like a precisely calibrated seismograph: It accurately locates undesired developments, it takes immediate measures and it uses modern methods to take corrective actions.

Good Human Resources Management and a competent, committed crew will prevent an expensive and damaging loss of reputation due to a high employee turnover, and will ensure the systematic and consistent implementation of personnel sustainment and fostering.

Human Resources Management is subject to many vain trends that simulate superficial, contemporary open-mindedness and modernity. Many of those theoretical management novelties cannot be implemented in daily practice. The main focus should not be on the concept, but on the uncompromising appreciation of the staff. More and more open-minded management teams and individual decision makers conclude that modern Human Resources Management not only accentuates the lasting added value of business processes, but also creates appreciation-generating values like motivation, loyalty, sense of belonging and work satisfaction. People that only want to earn their bread, will never develop the same hard and soft values that generate profit for a business as those people who are met with an authentic, sincere and open appreciation. Personnel recruitment is our daily business. We fill your vacancy!

www.swissrecruiting.com

www.hrm-jobs.ch

From electric tooth brushes, flywheels in machines or washing machines – the basic principles of mathematics, physics and logic, which represent the essence of engineering, can be found in everything.

Engineering defines our existence in all situations of life.

Engineering is usually considered an applied science. Of course, it includes comprehensive fundamental research. However, the declared main focus and core competence clearly lie in the practical implementation of scientific findings and in methods for the realization of technically mature products. Engineering also plays an important role in the industrial community of Northwestern Switzerland.

The invention of high-capacity computers fundamentally renewed the versatile engineering technologies. Due to constructive assumptions, for example, the reactions of atomic structures, substances, characteristics of materials, and other things can be anticipated with the help of computers and software-controlled simulations. Hence, costly misguided developments can be avoided thanks to theoretic-constructive platforms. Software-controlled simulations have replaced many process steps and provide fast and more cost-efficient results. Therefore, field-tested applications are executed more closely to technical limitations more frequently than in the past. With all the positive consequences. Engineering is unmistakably influenced by the general microeconomic framework. In order to be fit for the global competition, engineering, too, requires cost-efficient methods, which legitimize the right of existence of each and every company.

Skilled engineers are needed and utilized in all specialist areas: mechanical engineering, the construction of thermal and hydrologic power plants, structural calculations of buildings, the planning of nuclear facilities, the exploration of nanotechnological novelties, the use of metallurgic niche materials in medical engineering or technological life science specialties.

The PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AGhas dedicated its processes for personnel recruitment and selection to those different specialist areas.

The search for such experts in the engineering and high-tech industries often turns out to be lengthy and costly

. Good approaches are often stifled in technocratic procedures that follow the “trial-and-error principle” and are based on the experiences of causal-logical plausibilities. The search for personnel, and also the systematic recruitment of engineering experts, is often subject to irrational influences. Due to many years of experience and an excellent reputation, PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AG has, since its inception in 1992, enjoyed the undivided confidence of the local industries and job-seeking engineers.

Experts are absolutely essential for engineering and excellently developed industrial locations like Northwestern Switzerland, because they contribute to the economy’s added value with their highly skilled expertise. For many years, the PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AG has been entrusted with search requests for such high potentials. Personnel recruitment is our daily business. We fill your vacancy!

www.swissrecruiting.com

www.engineering-jobs-schweiz.ch

The commercial world of work has changed. Due to the unstoppable technological advancement and the strong internationalization of the commercial environment, many job descriptions have changed significantly, have been newly created or disappeared altogether. However, the attractiveness of the variety of commercial jobs remains unchanged. Without commercial experts and executives, the economy would stagnate.

Many businesses would be struggling without any commercial expertise.

The drastic, fundamental changes in the commercial world cannot be overlooked and are unstoppable. There is not one day that goes by without showing a new technological possibility to perform commercial tasks even faster, more efficiently and effectively. Productivity, effectiveness and efficiency have changed dramatically in some job descriptions. The constant increase of the dynamics of work processes has not only ‘streamlined’ organizations, but also evidently increased the pressure to be more productive and efficient. The escalating substantial flattening of organizations and hierarchies contribute to the fact that jobs with classically supporting functions like secretaries or assistants are undergoing significant changes. Managers often plan their travels themselves and make arrangements via the internet. They prepare documents themselves and do not require any further assistance. Finance and accounting systems have become very specialized as well. Due to more and more internationalized, legal regulations, more and more influential fiscal and accounting rules and other concomitants, this specialized area has become remarkably demanding and comprehensive. Human Resources Management has also been adjusted to the new requirements. It has changed drastically over the last few years and is now considered to be an independent specialty area in many companies. The days when it might have been incorporated in the IT department or bookkeeping are long gone and have made room for modern-day management needs.

The commercial world is changing constantly. Nothing remains the same. Reforms and changes also influence the commercial education system. They have clearly added to and strengthened the competencies of graduates of commercial schools.

Have commercial jobs become obsolete in the general professional world? By no means

Have commercial jobs become obsolete in the general professional world? By no means! Experts in the commercial field are absolutely essential for most companies. Over the last few years, however, the professional expectations in this occupation group have increased above average. Commercial experts still manage to meet those expectations as well as the demands of employers. The reforms of basic vocational training and the perfectly structured in-service training system, have clearly realized the demand for ‘best practice’, focusing on core competencies and continuing education. New findings, requirements and also technologies are therefore quickly incorporated into the continuing education system and immediately implemented in daily professional life by the graduates. Commercial services will continue to strongly dictate daily economic routines in the future. This occupation group possesses a stupendous ability to adjust to new demands. The personnel consultants at PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AG attend to the commercial sector very intensely. No matter if personnel search, screening or selection – we know what we are talking about. Since 1992.

Experts in the commercial field are a dominant and integral part of every economy. Since 1992, PKS Personal- & Kaderselektion AG has been specialized in searching, screening and selecting experts and High Potentials for all commercial jobs. Personnel recruiting is our daily business. We fill your vacancy!

www.swissrecruiting.com