hrandtalent

Meet Ralph – loving husband, father of two beautiful girls, and one of my best friends for more than thirty years. He was also there for my family and me when we lost our father to cancer at the age of 50.

When he’s not spending quality time with his family or on the job as a construction foreman, Ralph hits the road as an avid cyclist.

Despite facing his own health challenges, including a struggle with diabetes that he has successfully kept under control for more than 15 years, Ralph has participated in The Enbridge^® Ride to Conquer Cancer^® (“The Ride”) a total of four times, raising more than $10,000 in support of cancer research.

In addition to making a donation and helping Ralph raise money for The Ride, my organization, The Talent Company, is partnering with Ralph to support his theme for this year; “Team I’ve Got Your Back”. The premise is that, when you make a donation of $50 or more on his behalf, we will arrange to have the name of your loved one printed on the back of his cycling jersey (shirt) on the day of The Ride.

More than 75% of Canadians have had a personal connection with cancer through their own diagnosis or that of a loved one¹. We believe it would be a great tribute to have the names of our lost loved ones and those who have shown courage and survived, represented and riding alongside with Ralph on June 10^th and 11^th. Please click here to make your donation, so that together, we can help to finally putting an end to the terrible illness.

The Ride inspires cyclists to traverse more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) over a two-day weekend, and has impressively raised more than $155 million dollars for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre since 2008. We’re proud to partner with Ralph in support of this worthy cause.

Thank you in advance,

Joe Minaudo

Senior Partner, The Talent Company

¹ Most Canadians have been touched by cancer, but many don’t feel prepared to support themselves or their loved ones (2015, March 9). Retrieved from https://www.cancer.ca/en/about-us/for-media/media-releases/national/2015/daffodil-month-survey-shows-need-for-increased-awareness/?region=on

Talent management technology is evolving. Social features that drive collaboration, enable real-time feedback, and give employees (and their bosses) more visibility into what’s going on in their organization–furthering the trend towards consumerization of workplace IT. Early adopters of these socialized talent management technologies are seeing some immediate value-adds.

Specifically, here are three ways social technologies are having a positive impact in talent management:

1. Invigorated Open Door Policies

Marketing services firm Dominion Enterprises has always had an open door policy. But leadership struggled to sift through and act upon all the input they received. They needed a central platform for gathering, sharing and developing ideas.

“While we had channels for feedback and input, it was hard to get traction around ideas,” explains Susan Blake, VP of HR.

After giving UserVoice Feedback software a test run in one department, they rolled it out company-wide in March. Uservoice allows employees to submit ideas, vote on others’ ideas, and discuss them. The software had immediate impact, giving management the tools they need to give their open door policy new life–with employees from every department offering suggestions for improving products, policies and processes.

Furthermore, by showing employees that their feedback results in real changes, they’ve seen a spike in employee engagement. “To say UserVoice was a catalyst is an understatement,” says Blake.

2. Interactive Talent Directories

Gone are the employee directories of old, replaced with a strategic tool for both employees and leadership. You can still find contact info for colleagues in another department, but innovative products like Saba’s People Cloud have offer something more akin to an interactive talent directory.

Employees can create detailed profiles–listing skills, competencies and interests (relevant to their current roles or their career goals). Colleagues can search for experts in the company, and garner attention from peers and leadership by regularly lending expertise hand or sharing articles of interest. Managers can find viable candidates internally for key hires.

3. Motivating Career Management

One of social talent technology’s greatest value-adds for employees is in career management functionality. Systems like UpMo–the first enterprise talent network–are offering users a unique approach to career pathing by putting employees in the driver’s seat.

With UpMo, employees grow their internal network and their skills profile simultaneously, making them more appealing candidates for opportunities in the organization. Like other social talent technologies, there’s even a bit of gamification built in, which encourages usage and makes the process more engaging. Employees can give each other shout-outs for a killer meeting (a +1 in Presenting), or thanks for explaining Cloud computing (a +1 in Cloud).

This highly social product, which launched a free version last week, brings new energy to career management by keeping employees focused on growing within their organization.

Social Technology Has Hurdles to Clear

While the products described above offer significant value, social technologies as applied to talent management still have room to evolve. For example: Seamless integration with other systems (e.g. simply having a single sign-on across systems could greatly boost user adoption).

“It’s a real problem if every product requires another log-in or user profile,” says Joe Fuller, CIO at Dominion. “We want single sign-on–it’s the biggest complaint.”

What do you think are the greatest opportunities for social technology to drive innovation in talent management? What hurdles are there to clear before we see widespread adoption?

About the Author:

Kyle Lagunas is the HR Analyst at SoftwareAdvice.com—an online for reviewing and comparing talent management software.  On the surface, it’s his job to contribute to the ongoing conversation on all things HR. Beyond that, he makes sure his audience is keeping up with important trends and hot topics in the industry. Focused on offering a fresh take on points of interest in his market, he’s not your typical HR guy.

Markham, Ontario, Canada – June 7, 2012 – The Talent Company today launched their new suite of assessment tools as a value added service to clients of their recruitment and leadership development programs. “Many organizations are challenged when making important decisions about their people, whether during the interview process, development or succession planning. Using validated assessments can provide additional and useful data points to support decision making. As a certified executive coach, I am a firm believer in using assessment tools to support organizational growth and executive coaching.” says Rehana Doobay, CEO & Practice Leader of Leadership and Executive Coaching.

The Talent Company’s customized assessments include:

360° Feedback Survey

360° assessments have proven to be an extremely valuable source of performance data to assist in management development, succession and career planning.

The Workstyle and Performance Profile (WPP)

The WPP can be used during the new hire process and to further develop employees. It provides job fit considerations, management tips, and suggested interview questions to support the selection process.

Team Composite Report

Whether you are building a new team, growing a team or wanting to better understand team dynamics, the Workstyle Performance Profile team profiling enables people leaders to gain insight into their team’s unique characteristics and provides recommendations for team development and improvement.

“Adding a suite of robust assessments to our services offering is an exciting and strategic step forward for us”, says Joe Minaudo, Practice Leader of Strategy and Transformation with The Talent Company. “Client’s gain a great deal by using our tools as they help to lessen much of the guesswork associated with identifying talent with the best fit. Also, hiring new talent, which does not complement your organization’s culture and values, can become disruptive, and reduce employee morale. Our assessments help you retain the essence of what makes your company unique, they help you to understand these key traits and provide you with the insight and tools to sustain and grow a strong base of future leaders.”

The Talent Company is a human resources consulting firm that enables organizations to achieve superior business results through the strategic acquisition, management and elevation of talent. Solutions are customized to address the needs of clients and delivered by a uniquely experienced team of talent consultants. A full suite of services are available to address the changing needs of an organization including areas such as talent management, performance enhancement, leadership development, recruitment strategy & capabilities assessments, and executive coaching.

Inquiries:

Simon Parkin, Practice Leader – Recruitment & Talent Management

The Talent Company Ltd.

simon.parkin@thetalent.co

1-866-973-9151

Markham, Ontario, Canada – May 30, 2012 – The Talent Company, a human resources consulting firm, announced today that it has launched a new recruitment services subsidiary called Solara Search (www.solarasearch.com). The focus of Solara Search is to provide a range of specialized à la carte services within the talent acquisition and retention space. This includes candidate search, executive onboarding, talent pipelining, market intelligence and research services as well as a comprehensive set of assessment and selection tools.

“Understandably, this is a very competitive space and one that we initially looked at with a fair level of reserve,” says Rehana Doobay, Chief Executive Officer of Solara Search’s parent, The Talent Company. “When we spoke with clients and members of our professional networks, we realized there was tremendous potential in bringing specialized recruitment services to market.  With our unique ability to understand the challenges our clients so often face, we have a very real opportunity to become leaders in this space and help resolve the issues experienced by many of the recruitment functions today”.

Solara Search differentiates itself in a number of ways; a customized and targeted candidate sourcing service called Talent Pipelining, robust Competitive Intelligence and Research, Executive Onboarding and a suite of candidate Assessment tools that help to ensure new hires complement the culture and values of an organization.

“Solara Search is a great example of what speaks to the uniqueness of our position in the market,” says Simon Parkin, Practice Leader, Recruitment and Talent Management with Talent Company. “An extremely potent offering which effectively fulfills the entire talent attraction, acquisition and retention value chain. I am excited about the value that Solara Search brings to our clients and the opportunity to really transform the recruitment industry”.

Solara Search is a recruitment services firm that enables organizations to achieve real value and real results through the identification, engagement and acquisition of top talent. Clients benefit from a range of services, each uniquely designed to target and address complex talent acquisition challenges. At Solara Search, our belief is that organizations gain greater value for their recruitment spend by enlisting only the services needed, not based on a single source approach.

Solara Search – Real Value. Real Results.

Solara Search Brochure

Inquiries:

Simon Parkin

The Talent Company Ltd.

Simon.parkin@thetalent.co

1-866-973-9151

Markham, Ontario, Canada – May 14, 2012 – The Talent Company today announced that two of their Practice Leaders will be speaking at the 2013 HRPA Annual Conference being held in Toronto on January 23, 24 & 25 2013.   Rehana Doobay, CEO & Practice Leader of Leadership and Executive Coaching, will be leading a session on overcoming the challenges organizations face when optimizing their talent outcomes.  Simon Parkin, Practice Leader of Recruitment and Talent Management for The Talent Company will be leading a session on the leading recruitment trends, best practices and how organizations can enhance the effectiveness of their corporate recruitment function.

“Simon and Rehana are thrilled to have been asked to speak at next year’s event.” says Joe Minaudo, Practice Leader of Strategy & Transformation at The Talent Company. “The HRPA Annual Conference is one of the top HR conferences in North America and is attended by over 4,500 HR professionals.  We are excited to share our perspectives and knowledge with such a large and captivated audience.  The fact that two of our Practice Leaders were asked to speak at one of the top HR events, speaks volumes to our depth of expertise within the Human Resources consulting industry.”

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The Talent Company is a human resources consulting firm that enables organizations to achieve superior business results through the strategic acquisition, management and elevation of talent. Solutions are customized to address the needs of clients and delivered by a uniquely experienced team of talent consultants. A full suite of services are available to address the changing needs of an organization including areas such as talent management, performance enhancement, leadership development, recruitment strategy & capabilities assessments, and executive coaching.

Inquiries:

Simon Parkin, Practice Leader – Recruitment & Talent Management

The Talent Company Ltd.

simon.parkin@thetalent.co

1-866-973-9151

Markham, Ontario, Canada – April 23, 2012 – The Talent Company today announced that Rehana Doobay joins the HR consulting firm as CEO and Partner.  Ms. Doobay comes to The Talent Company with 20 years of industry experience working in global organizations that foster diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace. She most recently held the position of Vice President, Human Resources at Shoppers Drug Mart where she served as Chief Talent and Diversity Officer. Rehana will lead The Talent Company in their efforts to provide expanded HR and talent solutions to organizations across North America.

“We are thrilled to have Rehana join our team,” says Simon Parkin, Partner at The Talent Company. “We’re a consulting firm with a seasoned team of HR subject matter experts. With Rehana’s deep industry experience, uncompromising integrity and ability to forge strong relationships with talent leadership and business executives, she is an exceptional addition to our organization, and one which we strongly believe will derive a lot of value for our firm and clients.”

Rehana cultivated her expertise internationally, serving Fortune 500 companies from various sectors including information technology, financial services, retail and sales. Her exposure to global markets is invaluable to The Talent Company, providing opportunities to share new perspectives on HR concepts that could be adapted for the North American market. In her years working with organizations and their people, Rehana developed an interest in coaching; a skill she believes will help clients of The Talent Company realize their potential. Rehana is a Certified Executive Coach (CEC).

“I joined The Talent Company because my belief system is aligned with the company’s objectives to nurture the independent growth of organizations rather than creating a dependency on the consulting agency,” says Rehana Doobay, CEO of The Talent Company. “The Talent Company creates a framework for success that is authentic to the client’s needs through the use of customizable talent solutions and leadership coaching. We work with the client to get to the root cause of organizational issues, and we provide practical solutions and advice using language the client can understand.”

Rehana Doobay assumes her role as CEO immediately.

The Talent Company is a human resources consulting firm that enables organizations to achieve superior business results through the strategic acquisition, management and elevation of talent. Solutions are customized to address the needs of clients and delivered by a uniquely experienced team of talent consultants. A full suite of services are available to address the changing needs of an organization including areas such as talent management, performance enhancement, leadership development, recruitment strategy and executive coaching.

Inquiries:

Simon Parkin, Practice Leader – Recruitment & Talent Management

The Talent Company Ltd.

simon.parkin@thetalent.co

1-866-973-9151

Throughout my career as a senior Recruitment Leader and now as an Organizational Talent advisor to a number of companies, I have been fortunate enough to work with a large number of great organizations who gave me the opportunity to partner with them on developing and implementing new practices to enhance their recruitment function and hiring outcomes.  A few years ago a large Canadian organization asked me to come in and partner with them to build an in-house recruitment function for them from scratch – what a great opportunity to put my recruitment experiences and beliefs into place.  The company had no centralized recruitment function in place and the business had been responsible for their own recruitment over the previous 5 years…..this organization was a true recruitment agency “cash cow”.  The year prior to me working with this company, they had spent over $8 million in permanent recruitment fees and weren’t happy with the level of quality hiring across the organization.

My first action on this project was to meet with each of the separate business unit SVPs and gain an understanding of their needs and wants while managing their expectations of what could be done and how quickly.  Obviously to build a new recruitment function, there needed to be a budget.  I knew through my experience the best way to do this was to set up a budget separate from HR and paid into directly by the business units themselves.  Most people will immediately assume this is a tough sell trying to solicit money from the business units. Based on my experience of working on a number of similar type of projects over the years it is actually a very easy sell.  The reaction from the business to my budget proposal is consistently “whatever you need for this company to hire better talent”.  These leaders recognize that great recruitment leads to great talent which leads to better outcomes for their business.  This mindset is ideal when it comes to changing the way an organization pays their corporate recruiters…….changing the pay model to more closely mirror how sales people should be compensated – based on success and outcomes!

The SVP of Sales with this company said to me “Simon, if your new recruitment team can hire top sales people for my team and the new sales talent exceed their first year sales goals, I will gladly ensure your team receives a cut in recognition of their role in our team’s success.”   This started the ball rolling as I was able to work with the Compensation, HR and Sales leads from the company to build a great compensation model for the recruiters supporting the sales division.  We built a compensation structure modelled similar to their sales roles in the company.  The Recruiters would be offered a lower base salary but a significantly higher variable pay component.  We designed the variable pay component of this Recruiter role based on specific performance milestones and achievements.  The performance milestones were primarily recruitment outcome focused (Quality of Hire and Recruitment Service Delivery Excellence) and not the traditional recruitment process focused metrics (Time to Fill, Interview to Hire ratio).  There were no ceilings put on the variable pay component so there was an opportunity for the Recruiters to make significant earnings but based on real performance.  We wanted to design the compensation to reflect the need for these Recruiters to be fully engaged to do the best job possible.  It would be a true WIN-WIN scenario – the Recruiter recruits better sales talent who in turn drive increases revenues for the company who in turn rewards the Recruiter for the better organizational performance.

This company had no problem attracting the top Recruiters in the market to join them using the different compensation plan as the carrot.  Knowing a number of great Recruiters like I do, I know they are all confident in their abilities to succeed and would have no hesitation in accepting this type of opportunity.  Great Recruiters share many of the same personal attributes and behaviours as great sales people so why not offer them the opportunity to align their earnings more closely to their success and outcomes.

So what was the outcome for this company?  Well, three years later this organization continues to use this compensation model for their Sales Recruiters and they have tweaked it for the other Recruiters on the team to follow who work with the other business units within the company.  Annual sales from the new sales talent have exceeded the company’s goals every year.  The Sales Recruiters are still fully engaged and committed to the success of the organization and have more than doubled the salaries they made prior to joining this company.   The entire recruitment function has also made its mark saving the company over 80% of what they had been paying for recruitment previously mainly through recruitment agencies.  The organization is very happy with their return on investment with their new in-house recruitment function.

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Simon Parkin is the Practice Leader for Recruitment and Talent Management at The Talent Company – www.thetalent.co     Simon is recognized as a global thought leader in the acquisition and management of top talent and has successfully transformed the Talent function for organizations of all sizes. Simon works closely with clients to build, develop and innovate their Recruitment, Talent and HR functions. He is a former global leader of Recruitment and Talent for a Fortune 100 company. Simon is a featured speaker at a number of HR and Recruitment conferences across North America and an author of many acclaimed articles on innovative Recruitment, Talent and HR trends and best practices.  Simon’s full profile can be found at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/simonparkin1