Make Your Staffing Strategy as Flexible
as the Market is Unpredictable
|
With the economy in recent turmoil, now is a good time for business
leaders to remember something they seemed to have forgotten in the last
several years. The solution to the staffing crisis is not---nor was it
ever---to be found in filling open positions on the organization chart.
Staffing needs are always in flux. The person you need today is probably
not the person you will need tomorrow. That's why successful organizations
in today's economy will maintain very strong, but very lean core groups,
while using more flexible staffing options to get most of the work done
every day.
CREATE A BROAD NETWORK OF TALENT
Many geographically diffuse organizations have, in recent years, created
internal employee databases to enable managers in one location to utilize
the organization's employees regardless of geography. But that's not enough.
To meet today's varied and unpredictable staffing needs, managers need
access to larger, more diversely skilled talent pools than any one
organization can possibly afford to keep on its payroll. The killer
solution is a huge network of talent---a proprietary talent database
indexed by skill and performance ability and linked with up-to-date contact
information---including a wide range of individuals and firms. Consider
independent contractors, temps, consultants, part-timers, flex-timers,
some-timers, telecommuters, outside firms, former employees, and job
applicants who receive but don't accept offers.
BUILD YOUR OWN RESERVE ARMY
Your best former employees can quickly become backbones of your fluid
staffing strategy. They already know how to do business in your
organization. You've already trained them. They already know you and many
of your colleagues, and probably plenty of your vendors and customers.
Whose skill and performance abilities do you know better than the people
who have already worked for you? When they come back, you’ll probably have
to fill them in on some new developments, but they'll get up to speed much
more quickly than a brand-new employee. Of course, in many organizations,
this will require an overhaul of your approach to departing employees: No
longer can you treat those who leave as disloyal job-hoppers. They are your
reserve army. Treat them with respect.
OUTSOURCE EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY CAN
If you’re not great at it---whatever it is---stop doing it, or else
outsource it to a vendor that is truly great. The financial reason is
diversification of risk and cost. But there is a much more important
reason: Diversification of excellence. You can only be truly great at just
so many things. So you must also become known for integrating the core
competencies of other truly great vendors into your day-to-day work process
and ultimately into your final products and services.
