The wonderful revelation about social media is that it allows outside views to percolate and counter the status quo thinking that has tended to dominate the halls of corporate America. It also allows us the opportunity to question the tenuous statistics and facts that seem to be trotted out as fundamental truths, only to be found wanting.

I think it is time we put to rest the “War for Talent” cliche. We do not talk about the “War for Customers”, “War for Market Share” or “War for Cash Flow” (though maybe that could be the next great business book innovation / management guru fad). It has completely colored and distorted the views of corporate executives, causing perverse behaviors in companies such as excessive bonuses, a revolving door of employees, and a total lack of employee engagement.

The new focus in corporate America is not going to be on talent acquisition. The real innovation is the concept of workforce planning and analysis where companies take an in depth view of their talent and aligning that talent as needed by the organization. Most of the gains in efficiency and productivity have already been squeezed from re-engineering processes, restructuring companies and re-architecting technology, so the only area left remains in better leveraging human capital.

Companies are starting to come to the realization that they need better incentives to get employees to stay longer. What is the best incentive to get people to stay? Keep them engaged in work that best leverages their skills, allow them to plot their career paths with transparency and implement a fairer measure of performance. This all goes to the need to a consistent and tangible metric to gauge the workforce and aligning the workforce to the work needed.

The “War for Talent” made for nice copy and lots of fees for the management consulting industry over a decade ago. The reality however is that this “war” is a myth, always was and forever will be. It is unfortunate however that respectable organizations such as Bersin have to perpetuate the myth.

Instead of bringing out tired bromides of supposed strategy experts, it is time to seriously dissect some of the “truisms” of work, workers and the relationship between the two. It is not a hunt to bring in outside talent that is limiting the progress of organizations, rather it is the misalignment of the talent companies already have. It is the skills that go underutilized in jobs, the jobs that are disconnected with organizational goals, and the gaps between the skills needed verses the skills possessed by the workforce.

And what of the shortage of talent due to generational and societal trends? As our current economic dilemma painfully demonstrates, we actually had a significant oversupply of workers for the needs of the US workforce. With the economy in recovery, many of the jobs lost will never come back and the shrinking of the unemployment numbers will in large part come from older workers leaving the workforce faster than anticipated.

As for the issue of educational standards not meeting the needs of the US economy, this is a red herring. While the educational system needs retooling, there is a greater percentage of students attending college and earning degrees than at any time in US history. This is also true of high school diplomas, where the 1 out of 5 drop out rate is actually an IMPROVEMENT on the historical trends (US Census Bureau). While conflicted organizations such as ASTD may trot out numbers saying 30% of college graduated entering the workforce need “remediation” training, this seems highly specious at best when the numbers show greater levels of education every decade.

It is important to also consider that the workforce of the future is not the workforce as restricted within the boundaries of the US. It is now a global workforce and companies from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies are leveraging this global pool of talent and labor to get work accomplished. Furthermore, this talent is becoming more educated and more skilled. If a company does not find the talent it is looking for, they really are not trying hard enough or do not understand what they are looking for.

So the inability to fine-tune the workforce to the needs of the organization is in fact the real challenge over the next ten years. The war for talent is simply a symptom of this chronic misalignment of talent.

The previous post we focused on the issue of job title inflation and the impact on companies’ talent management practices. However, there are greater implications for the way companies themselves are structured that will significantly shape the workplace of the future.

Job title inflation is symptomatic of two significant shifts in the workforce. One is a generational shift in attitudes towards a greater sense of self-worth, referred to as the “me” generation. This is reflected in the belief that work must mean something and they need to understand their impact and role in that work. Identity becomes as valued as substance, thus the title means more value, regardless of the actual content of the role.

The second major shift is the increasing pressure on companies to perform given reduced resources. The competitive and market pressures are compounded further by globalization and increasingly knowledgeable workforces in developing countries. Companies have done as much as can be expected from more efficient use of capital, technology and process improvements, and outsourcing. Beyond faster innovation cycles, companies now must contend with how to gain greater productivity in their workforce.

Job title inflation has obscured this pressure on filling the human capital need. What we are actually seeing is the dissolution of the traditional corporate hierarchy based on formalistic 19^th century military structures. Companies need more talent requiring more specialization to effectively compete; job title inflation is merely the symptom of a trend in companies acquiring the skills to meet their objectives. In this context, the future organization is in reality a highly networked and efficient entity of skills that are used, traded or evolved as needed between workers.

This evolution of skills will continue in faster cycles with the increasing speed of change in markets. However, job titles are not equivalent to a set of requisite skills for a position, especially with job title inflation. To prepare, companies must begin to catalogue and manage skills across the workforce and measure against the need of the organization in real-time. Therefore, true competitive advantage becomes human capital and the effectiveness of organizations to manage and leverage skills.

We have become the culture of the Chief Anything Officer. Case in point is the proliferation of magazines dedicated to various Chief Something or Other Officers. But does it serve a business purpose?

Businesses are evolving at a furious pace to adapt to an ever increasingly competitive marketplace. The demands have been amplified as more and louder constituencies vie to impose their will on companies. Whether it is governments, social activist groups, international organizations, or bloggers, the scrutiny has become overwhelming.

Corporate leaders have tried every flavor of the month strategy fad to keep up. The result is that companies that should be focused on executing to their vision are finding their focus diffused into multiple areas. It is no longer enough to just make money; you must be invested in Diversity, mitigating Risk, facilitating Learning, cataloguing Knowledge, focusing on People, and actively monitoring Social Media.

As companies define more things as important, all of these things require someone to lead the cause. What might have had some usefulness takes on a life of its own, and before long a new fiefdom has been created. And at the top, the Chief Bigwig Officer reigns supreme. With everyone a chief, it is only a matter of time before we see the Chief Receptionist Officer.

There are two immediate implications as it applies to talent management. One is that job title inflation is not simply happening at the top. How many people with “manager” in their titles actually manage anything? The second point is that if it is happening at one company, it is happening everywhere else, so job titles provide little useful information when evaluating the career paths of candidates.

Looking beyond the obvious however is a more startling observation: the dawning of a new type of organization. In the next post, I will explain the reality of what job title inflation is showing us about the future of the corporate structure and the relationship with work.

Some months back, I had an interesting discussion with a HR professional about the relevance of resumes in an age of social media. Some folks are traditionalists, but I make no apologies when I state that the resume is dead and job seekers (and HR professionals) better get on board with social media.

I look at this from two angles. First is the value of the information provided in a resume as it relates to the information needed. Second is how to collect that information.

When I seek candidates for a job, I want to know two things: what skills they have to do the job and what motivates them to want to do that job well. That is it. Why? Because job performance is based on what the person can do (their skills) and how they apply those skills (their motivation).

A resume is simply the documentation of biographical data points of a candidate’s professional life. It is not without some value, but as they say in the investment world, past performance is not indicative of future returns. The resume provides a sense of what a person could be capable of, but it is far from a certainty.

When I want biographical information, social media and search engines help fill the need. Tools such as LinkedIn make it easy get the typical resume fodder as well as recommendations and interactive data that provide a deeper view of the candidate. New tools are being released regularly to help give candidates more options to differentiate themselves and for hiring managers to get a more precise view of the skills of these same candidates.

This is when my HR friend interjected that not everyone is on social media and that it is exclusionary. However, it is only exclusionary for those people that are change-challenged. Social media is a phenomena that has become part of our cultural fabric and will only become more pervasive. It is to the benefit of job seekers to move beyond their comfort zone and learn the tools available to them.

So to job seekers, instead of sending your resumes, send a link to your online profile or add it to your email signature. Leverage Facebook, Twitter, social media sections of job boards, and other social media tools to post your profile, network, build your personal brand, and find jobs.

To HR professionals, start getting on board with social media. Your marketing and sales departments get it, and so should you. Just like the Internet, computers and business casual dress, social media is happening with or without you.

The way companies evaluate measure is a sham. This comes to mind today because I was reading a post recently that took issue with the idea of quantifying talent because it makes decision makers lazy and that not everything that is important can be measured. While I agree that an overreliance on numbers can be detrimental, the truth is that no one is even quantifying talent!

There is much talk about measuring talent, but the tools that purportedly do so are simply measuring the wrong thing. Performance reviews measure achievement of goals, but are qualitative in nature and rarely oriented towards growth in a worker’s skills. Competency models are simply too high level and arbitrary to be a useful basis of ongoing measurement.

These tools are “quantitative” in name only. However they have contributed to corporate laziness on part of decision makers who have come to rely on these numbers instead of looking deeper to analyze meaning. These tools are only capturing the surface of human performance, not the essence of talent.

Talent encompasses both skills and motivation. While motivation is very difficult, if not impossible, to assess, skills are very much tangible, definable and measurable. Skills cover not just the technical and functional components of work, but also management and leadership skills to guide work smoothly toward the corporate vision. And these skills are specific and detailed, many times uncovering the hidden truths about what is truly important in a role and what talents a person possesses.

Rather than contributing to the culture of corporate laziness, the richness of skills opens up new possibilities for leadership. It allows companies to become vastly more effective with its human capital and realign itself to best utilize this pool of talent. For employees, it is inherently fairer because the process is transparent and enables employees to have more control over their career path and professional development. This is the future of human capital management, the foundation of which is the ability to have a meaningful measurement of talent.

I am going off topic from the usual fare on this blog to address a controversial practice in the start-up world. I read an interesting, if overly passionate, post regarding the morality of VC’s and angel networks charging entrepreneurs to pitch to them. Suffice it to say, the author took a dim view on this practice, but there is definitely more to the story.

Being a founder of a start-up firm and having participated in these pitch events, I can tell you that these are not the best venues for many entrepreneurs. To put this practice into perspective, it is important to understand perception versus need.

Every entrepreneur should ask themselves why they need to seek outside capital. Many start-ups overestimate their initial capital needs and believe they need to go for big money early on. Most VC’s are not enthusiastic about investing in early stage companies, and most Angels turn out to be difficult partners. This makes the search for funds extremely challenging for entrepreneurs if they have neither the network nor credibility to be heard.

Paid pitching events provide a tempting alternative route for many entrepreneurs. The issue is that these events leave the impression in the minds of entrepreneurs that access to funds is guaranteed. While these events can foster introductions and build important relationships in the industry, few actually come away with solid funding prospects. Given the cost of attending these events (some of which are truly predatory), to not come away with anything more than a “nice pitch” comment is difficult to swallow.

So here is my advice to entrepreneurs: focus on creating your product, building up a customer base, growing revenues, and generating a sustainable business.  If you need cash, whittle down expenses, bootstrap what’s required, and gather funds from friends & family to supplement near-term cash needs. If more cash is required, take time to network with relevant VC’s directly before considering a pay-to-pitch event, and realize that raising capital is a full-time job.

My advice to VC’s and angel networks: be more transparent in your charges and be vigilant against making any implicit guarantees. Make the charges reasonable to cover the costs of hosting the event, and consider subsidizing the bulk of those costs. Entrepreneurs are coming to you because they need cash, not because they are made of cash.

And lastly, while there are a few charlatan investor groups, there are many more reputable organizations that are providing a valuable service in connecting entrepreneurs to funding sources. These pitch events are only one means of reaching investors however; the key is for entrepreneurs to know whether it makes sense for their startup.

Companies are still on the resume scanning kick. Through more advanced analytical techniques and more complex technologies, it is thought that resume scanning can bring about higher quality candidates while reducing time and effort spent on low quality candidates.

Unfortunately, these tools do not work as advertised. Resume scanning fails because of rampant “Resume Scamming”. When 50% of candidates are lying on resumes, how is resume scanning going to produce valid results? While it can quickly dump the obviously unqualified candidates (jokesters, serial submitters, delusional seekers, etc.), the vast bulk of candidates will still be woefully unqualified for the position because of resume padding and credentials inflation.

On the flip side, using job descriptions as the input for these technologies to perform scans are ineffective. Such descriptions are either outdated or do not adequately reflect the actual skills required to be successful in the position. They are descriptions based on what hiring managers and HR staff think is needed, but rarely is any thought put into crafting a useful document.

We are awash in resumes, so I understand the appeal of resume scanning and keyword search tools. However, the better solution is to make candidates go through more effort upfront in the candidate process to prove their interest and their qualifications. These qualifications, or more succinctly skills, can be captured, measured and analyzed to produce much more qualified candidates.

It is time to let go of these reactive technologies that simply encourage the bad behavior of job seekers. Resume scanning, keyword search and other similar tools are going the way of the dodo. Get more proactive in the process, get candidates to put in some effort by making them evaluate their skills, and get a better quality pool of candidates that can do the job.

After reading some recent Twitter traffic, I was inspired to post my own thoughts on the matter. As 2010 kicks off and normalcy reigns, companies are going to get back to business as usual. And once again, the “War for Talent” will rage once more.

Or will it? In 1997,  McKinsey coined the term based on research that clearly showed that few companies had a clear handle on fostering talent. It was a watershed moment in corporate America and finally brought awareness of talent management to the boardroom. They finally diagnosed the problem! Unfortunately, they prescribed the wrong remedy.

While the prescription will not kill the patient, it certainly won’t get companies on the road to recovery. There are two reasons for this:

1. Companies still do not trust their employees, and
2. Companies have no idea what talent they already have.

The first issue is a big one. As I addressed in a previous post, companies that do not adjust their culture to one that builds an environment of trust with its employees will fail to keep their employees. It is simply too expensive to lose employees, not just in replacement costs, but in lost institutional knowledge and productivity. Companies need to give their employees a reason to stay.

The second issue speaks to where to find talent. Most solutions focus on recruitment practices, but do not provide insight into what is needed and what already exists internally. Most companies will find that the talent they seek already resides in abundance in the organization.

The challenge is to identify and align that talent to where it is most needed. Where large talent gaps exist, then companies should look to recruitment, training or more aggressive actions such as joint venture or acquisitions. The point is that before any costly action is undertaken, companies need to evaluate and measure what they have versus what they need.

We are in the era of the “Misalignment of Talent”. Those that continue to live in the “war” mentality are going to struggle keeping the employees they hire. The smart companies will however foster a culture of employee trust and measure their talent as a framework for sustained success.

Do you trust your employees? With a recent report from The Conference Board stating that only 45% of US employees are satisfied with their jobs, a number that has been steadily declining over the past 20 years, there is something bigger going on here, and it comes down to trust.

The human resources field at one point was focused on actually helping and developing employees, but over several decades has morphed into a risk management organization. HR is now about regulatory compliance and preventing employees from suing their employers. Given this dynamic, it is no surprise that employees have developed a negative view of the HR profession and by extension their companies.

I have to let HR off the hook here somewhat. They are not the villain in this story, but the unfortunate messenger of management and governmental regulatory dictates. While nothing can be done to radically change the way government regulates the workplace, there is something that management and corporate leaders can do starting right now. Start trusting your employees!

How do you actualize trusting employees? Here is your five step plan:

1. Let employees define their jobs. Most managers have little idea what their employees actually do on a day to day basis. Micro-management is not the answer. Instead, let employee identify the key skills they use to fulfill their tasks and goals. This should be your new job descriptions and the new criteria by which to base job performance.
2. Give employees the freedom to define their careers. That means performance reviews should be based on fair, transparent and measurable criteria. The key purpose of the performance review should be to guide employees in their career and should be tightly bound with career pathing and development. Managers need to support employee career decisions and give them a transparent path to reach the highest levels of the organization if they desire that path.
3. Separate the compliance functions from HR. Human resources should be focused on talent acquisition and development. Compliance is a legal function and that is where it should remain (and let’s admit it…no one likes lawyers anyway).
4. Develop real incentives for employees. Most employers scaled back heavily on these programs in many cases for good reasons (like needing to stay in business beyond 2009). However, as the economy recovers, the smart move is to build up creative incentives and implement more visible employee recognition programs.
5. Lastly, be honest with employees. If this recent recession taught us anything, holding back the truth can cause significant damage. Corporate values should be rewritten and honesty put in as the number one value. If you need to do layoffs or hold back bonuses or cut benefits, do not be coy about it. Explain the reasoning. Employees will appreciate the straight forward approach.

Obviously, you are free to ignore this advice, but you do so at your own risk. With some studies stating that job turnover could be well over 50% this year, the risk of losing good talent is high. If you start trusting your employees though, you are well on your way to being ahead of the competition and keeping your staff.