4 Mobile Enabled Weapons that can help HR Win the War for Talent

Talent recruitment has become a massive challenge to organizations. There exist certain mobile enabled tools that can assist organizations fill this gap. About a third of the world’s population is unemployed but substantial sums of people in the developing countries get overlooked simply due to lack of access. This can be resolved using mobile enabled recruitment platforms. Post recruitment, talent management is equally a craft which requires investment of time and money for on-boarding and retention. The existing employees meanwhile must be provided with proper corporate training platforms so they can be better prepared for upcoming changes and avoid having to recruit fresh from outside. Finally no aspect of the organization can do well unless the core business itself isn’t flourishing.

4 Best Practices in Delivery of Digital Learning Resources

E-Learning has become extremely critical these days and certain best practices have been identified to pursue the same. Content and delivery must be localized as far as possible. Downloads must be allowed. Engagement with final user must involve the use of social media. The existing gap between access and understanding must be eliminated immediately. An executive MBA is often pursued using e-learning as its very user friendly for starters. It also increases awareness, enables timely feedback and ensures completion with due diligence.

2 Ways your Corporate Culture and Values Align

Organizational values are often framed during the corporate strategy formulation yet seldom followed during the actual execution of work. Thus an alignment between corporate culture and values is what is missing. The ‘feel good’ aspects need to be replaced by more tangible benefits. Too much is being made of big data based business analysis, however we do not have conclusive evidence of that being a maxim. Thus values and gut feeling need to be churned to get best business results and not go purely by hard data. 

From Globizen to Egotourist, new terms in the world of Travel

Several new terms have been coined in the world of travel and tourism. There are new traveler categories as well as trip types. There is the constantly traveling for work or pleasure globizen. Then there are seekenders who escape on weekends or extended ones seeking unique experiences. This travel group ends up generating number of travel jobs. There are List-tickers whose primary motive behind traveling is to fulfill some bucket list. Finally there are those may be categorized as egotourists who travel distances to meet local people and immerse in local cultures yet stay at high end luxury resorts. As for trip types, there is this thing called weedery which aims at drug induced a holiday. There is this unique type known as fakeation where the ‘tourist’ actually stays at home but claims to be traveling. Also there is the honeyteer where a honeymoon is spent as a volunteer.               

4 Ways Smart Leaders are Shaking up their Culture

Corporate culture is being altered in certain ways by smart modern leaders. Learning is not restricted to formal corporate training sessions but in fact is encouraged to be a round the clock issue. The new age manager is in fact a mentor for all team members. The purpose of achievement is stressed above material factors such as pay. These managers even stress upon the fact that work eventually becomes so critical that entire life processes revolve around the same. 

Changes on the Horizon for Aurora Tourism in Fairbanks

Fairbanks in Alaska is one of the premier destinations globally for viewing the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. It has been a particularly favourite tourism destination for Japanese tourists. The town has historically had road signs written in Japanese to further point towards the popularity of the place. However, now Fairbanks is receiving other tourists and thus road signs in Hindi, German, Mandarin, Spanish and Korean are being added boosting tourism jobs. Due to fleet cuts and pilot shortages, Japan Airlines has reduced flight frequency to Alaska and thus many Japanese tourists are now arriving via continental USA or simply going someplace else.

How Digital Transformation is Disrupting the World of Consultancy

Management consulting as an industry is going through a lot of change mainly brought about by digital transformation. In fact these days no firm is formulating its corporate strategy without aligning the same with technology. Thus the acronym SMAC has emerged to notify Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. Cognizant being a technology company at heart has been among the first movers and thus growing at great pace in consulting. Clients no longer accept the traditional hierarchy bound model but instead demand a system based on agility. 

How HR measures its success in Southeast Asia

HR has for long promised to become a strategic partner to businesses yet parameters have not been conclusively defined. In South-East Asia, certain parameters have been defined to gauge efficiency of HR. These parameters were finalized post a management consulting report by Michael Page. Nearly 80% of respondents in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia feel that staff turnover is most important indicator to assess HR’s performance followed by employee engagement. Employee performance is third most important. Talent management is also given top priority in India and Turkey in addition to South East Asia.

Great Employee Engagement starts as soon as the hire is Made

Firms often flounder at employee engagement and this leads to a high attrition rate. On-boarding for new hires is a very difficult task and thus some firms are doing the same in unique manner. Achievers is one such example. The moment a person accepts a job offer, the next day the person is sent a token gift. Post joining every thirty, sixty and ninety days job feedback must be provided by them. Talent management is further boosted by the fact that for senior employees ‘stay interviews’ are conducted periodically.

Three Vendors Lead in Talent Management Software Comparison

Business consulting giant Gartner has come up with a list of organizations doing best at providing talent management suites. Cornerstone On Demand, Oracle and SAP have been singled out for bringing out best portals. As per their market research, more than a third of firms were using some such software or the other. Magic Quadrant and Taleo are two other very useful such suites. SuccessFactors is one such software which is most compatible to the Cloud. Infor, Ultimate and Workday can also avail consolation prizes in this line for their commendable work. 

Why more Companies are embracing Open Innovation

A number of organizations these days are exploring the opportunities of open innovation. This approach seeks to experiment with business innovation beyond the firm’s industry. One of its major advantages is transparency as firms need to collaborate with the external world in order to pursue this. Also clarity becomes important as organizations need to be clear as to where and for what they are looking at the outside world. Else this may become a wild goose chase. Crucially open innovation requires commitment as there may be failures and challenges along the way before arriving at the intended result.

Key Traits that every Data Scientist Needs

Data scientists have become invaluable in conducting valid business analysis in the present business world. Certain key traits have been identified by business research which they must possess in order to benefit the organization. First of all they must have a sound understanding as well as appreciation of data. They must have some base knowledge of engineering to best utilize metrics and correlations. However data science is not an exact one, it has elements of art and that is something the concerned person must realize. They must be able to communicate effectively with the various stakeholders. Finally, the data scientist beyond being a number cruncher must have business acumen to derive meaningful results for the organization.

World Class HR Organizations spend 37% less than Peers

Business research conducted by the Hackett Group has found out that organizations with the best of HR departments end up spending nearly two-fifths less than their peers. In fact they operate with about thirty percent lower workforce by numbers. This is possible due to effective workforce planning during the corporate strategy level. Their processes are also all well aligned to overall group needs and technology is increasingly used for automation purposes. This results in average savings of about US $ seventeen million annually for organizations worth around ten billion in yearly revenues.

Thailand set for a record year in Tourism

Thailand tourism has started the year 2015 on a high with inbound tourist numbers having risen by about a third from the January to July period from last year. This is as per market research conducted by CBRE. The major increase has taken place due to boost in numbers specifically from China and Japan who are taking advantage of the falling Baht. Only the Russian market has fallen as a source due to falling Ruble.

15 Books by Billionaires on how to run the World

The fifteen best books written by billionaires have been identified. Leading the list is The Virgin Way by Richard Branson. Then there is Onward by Howard Schultz. How to Win at the Sport of Business by Mark Cuban, The Essays of Warren Buffet by Warren Buffet and Business @ the Speed of Thought by Bill Gates occupy the next three slots in the list. Michael Bloomberg’s interestingly titled Bloomberg by Bloomberg comes next. Peter Thiel’s Zero to One, Ted Turner’s Call Me Led and Donald Trump’s Think like a Champion feature next in the list. Completing the top ten is The First Billion is the Hardest by T Boone Pickens. Soros on Soros is considered an ultimate work on business consulting by George Soros. Next three spots are occupied by Michael Dell’s Direct from Dell, Oprah Winfrey’s What I Know for Sure and Built from Scratch co-authored by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. Finally, completing the list is Ralph Lauren written by the man himself.

The Link between Values, Culture & Profits

Organizations lose a lot of money, time and effort simply in recruiting the right personnel. Also a lot of employees fail to settle down not only due to low productivity but because of attitudinal problems. Thus during talent recruitment, it remains crucial to identify the aspirant as per the organization’s cultural fit. This will help reduce employee turnover. Enron’s failure was a clear outcome of the profit-at-all-costs culture prevalent at the firm. Disney, Google and Southwest Airlines have thus initiated behaviour based interview rounds.

International visitor spending in US up 1 Percent

The average spending by inbound tourists to the USA has increased as per tourism consulting provided by the Department of Commerce. The major proceeds derive from travel receipts, passenger fare receipts and medical or educational visitors. This has also led to a spurt in the development of travel jobs. In 2014 average spend had increased by three percent and a further one percent growth has resulted in 2015. This has been possible due to an overhaul of the tourism bureau, the first of its kind in three decades.

3 Things Managers should be doing Everyday

A management consulting publication has provided us a list of tasks every manager must be performing on a daily basis. First of all they must develop trust with all stakeholders in the business. This they can achieve by posing relevant questions and performing their own duties with utmost dedication. They need to build a team and manage the same. Also they must develop a network of long term relationships involving various people connected with the business.  

6 Steps for Converting Employees into Intrapreneurs

Six steps have been identified by a leading management consulting publications which can motivate employees to become intrapreneurs. The first step must be empower employees. Relationships between employees has got to be fostered with encouragement from the management. In fact, employees must be encouraged to go beyond the limited confines of their work. Frequent brainstorming sessions must be held. The individuality of employees must also be emphasized upon rather than conventional norms as this generates business innovation. Ideas also need substantial time and freedom to incubate.

5 Inspiring Ways Companies are Engaging their Employees

Engaging existing employees is among the primary concerns of organizations these days. Some methods have been adopted by organizations to achieve the same. The City of Houston initiated a programme where bosses would be better coaches and in the process impart management training. Rescue SCB has set up a system where goals to be set at corporate strategy must be meaningful and inspiring. Guitar Center involves employees in meaningful ways. Encouraging peer based identification is something Saba Cloud Suite has implemented. Express meanwhile is known for its culture of learning and professional growth.