We are often asked how we define the current state of the employment market and our response is very consistent. We base much of our determination of the employment market condition on the number of unsolicited resumes we receive.  For the last 24 months, approximately 85% of the unsolicited resumes that we have received at our Leader Search practice were from individuals who were caught up in the wave of employee reductions that was taking place.  Within the last 3 – 5 months, 60 – 75% of the resumes we have received are from individuals who are currently employed by companies within every business sector and industry, who are now ready to make a career change. 

A recent study by Spherion, a Florida-based recruiting and outsourcing firm, found that of the 3000 individuals surveyed, 51% wanted to leave their current jobs and 75% said they were likely to leave within one year.  In addition, the same study found that workers surveyed would rather take early retirement and gamble that they’ll find something later than stay with their current company.

Although these numbers may not be immediately concerning because many organizations wouldn’t mind “trimming out” some of their poor performers, the same Spherion Study revealed that company’s best performers are often the ones to leave first, largely because they have more choices available to them. 

With this in mind, how many top performers can your organization afford to lose over the next 6 – 9 months?  What have you or your organization done to identify and address the “early warning signs” that a person might be looking elsewhere?  What efforts have been made to re-recruit and further develop your top performers?  The following are some simple and extremely effective methods to do all of the above.

Organizations must be sure to remove any blinders and begin to aggressively determine their current human capital depth, future needs, and what it will take to develop their internal bench.  This can be done very quickly by reviewing your organization’s short and long-term strategic business objectives, assessing your organization’s current bench strength, and by developing a plan to recruit internally and externally to fill both current and future human capital needs. 

We have helped many of our clients with this process by quickly and cost effectively developing internal and external candidate assessment centers to determine internal bench and recruitment needs, as well as implementing the use of fully validated psychometric assessment tools for pre-employment screening and interviewing of employees and executives, and post-hire development and succession planning. We have also developed base and incentive compensation plans to ensure that our clients are paying and rewarding their employees at market levels and in a manner that correlates with organizational objectives and customer/market desires.

Taking these necessary steps need not be painful for you and your organization.  Failure to recognize this currently widespread problem, while taking remedial action, is now being discovered by many organizations to be the first step toward inability to compete in this global marketplace.