Creating a culture of wellness can be a positive step for organisations because it can improve morale and productivity while reducing costs associated with illness. The big question is can you do it without spending a lot of money or investing a lot of time, asks David Creelman

HR professionals have often been stigmatised by the perception that they lack businessnous. Compared with other organisational functions, such as operations, finance or IT, HR has some times not been considered one of the more important functions when it comes to essential parts of a business. One move that HR professionals can sometimes make to broaden their business expertise – as well as their subsequent recruitment and career path prospects – is to move into other functions. David Owens, managing director of HR Partners, suggests that this is a more commonly held aspiration now than it used to be. It was seen as a highly desirable thing to do – particularly by the more ambitious HR professional, he says.

Many of our colleagues in human resources are now starting to see their roles as similar to those in the sales and marketing group down the corporate hallway. In many aspects, leaders in human resources are responsible for managing a complex product comprising culture, environment, and reward elements — each element having different cost/value drivers, communication channel needs, process and delivery components, varying preferences across segments, and even shelf life (flexible spending accounts for instance). To guide the strategic development of the employee value proposition, many in HR are now starting to embrace the same sort of tools used for decades by marketing.

Corporations are struggling to address fundamental challenges pertaining to growth, operational performance, financial risk, regulation, and emerging trends. As a result, HR groups now have a unique opportunity to enhance their value — and credibility — by aligning their initiatives to squarely address these challenges. By identifying your organization's primary business challenge, and then determining which HR issues are most relevant, you'll be able to access best practice ideas to help address them.

Even in this recession, everyone I speak with is moaning about not being able to find the quality candidates they think they need. Maybe they have caused their own problem by narrowly defining jobs, by using yesterday’s criteria to solve today’s problems, and by a lack of imagination.

As the recovery progresses, employers will shift their focus from cutting labor costs back to preserving talent and investing in key segments of their workforce – issues at the very heart of strategic workforce planning (SWP), The Conference Board reports. "Employers who've been forced to focus on reducing headcount will return to deciding whether to buy, build, or rent the skills necessary to meet future business needs," said Mary Young, principal researcher at The Conference Board and author of a new report, Strategic Workforce Planning in Global Organizations.

There’s both an opportunity and a threat for HR in the wake of the global financial crisis, according to a major new study published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The first report of the CIPD’s Next Generation HR project recognises a far greater focus amongst senior business leaders on genuinely sustainable performance, and identifies examples of the best HR functions seizing the opportunities this focus offers the profession. However, the CIPD is warning that more needs to be done to ensure “the rest of HR catches up with the best of HR”.

Amid a shaky job market and predictions of massive turnover once the economy rebounds, a new study confirms that companies with integrated talent management processes not only achieved greater year-over-year profitability, but are also better positioned to achieve long-term success than companies with disparate HR processes and employee database systems. The study, "Integrated Talent Management: Improving Business Results through Visibility and Alignment," was conducted by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company, with support from TalentScope, Inc., the only fully-integrated provider of talent management solutions.

Think your employees are happy to simply have a job? Better think again, according to several new research reports that reveal roughly half of American workers are unsatisfied at work and suggest that once the economy turns around those employees will be the first to hit the road for a better opportunity.

The top-line findings of Freemont Learning’s recently completed comprehensive “State of Management Development” study — which is based on in-depth interviews with CLOs of 50 large global companies — are not surprising. Budgets are down — way down. Management development budgets were down on average 22 percent year-over-year.

The success of a Super Bowl team rides on the contributions of each of its players. The same goes for companies looking to make strategic plays and score new business – there’s no room for poor performers. To help job seekers promote themselves as strong candidates to employers, administrative staffing firm OfficeTeam has compiled a list of seven key traits managers are looking for in their next hires.

Q: As part of our recruitment strategy, we are looking to influence secondary and tertiary students in their career choice – what ideas do you have for doing this?A: It is heartening that you are looking to communicate with this segment of the employment market – they are, of course, our future talent. Most recruitment dollars are sadly spent on reactive advertising or other recruitment activity, and while this is often absolutely necessary, it is also good practice to take a longer-term view of your talent attraction strategy.

Once powerful employer brands are at risk of being unable to attract top talent in the next decade, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report on how the downturn will change the future of work. The bonds of trust between some employers and employees have been eroded by pay and promotion freezes, cuts in recruitment and diminished training budgets, the report found.

According to a survey that Manpower Inc. recently released, more than 60 percent of employers worldwide do not view contingent labor as critical to business success. Manpower foresees a new executive mindset in the post-recovery world, with forward-looking companies turning to a dynamic mix of permanent and contingent workers, increasing their flexibility for a competitive advantage.

As companies attempted to position themselves strategically to emerge from the recession, they might be surprised to find a scarcity of available top talent, according to Kelly O. Kay, the Global Managing Partner of the Software Practice at executive search and leadership advisory firm Heidrick & Struggles and author of the white paper, Time to Make Up for Lost Ground in Talent.

If a company doesn’t show how it is contributing positively to the world and the overall human condition, it will struggle to attract the next generation of potential employees, according to former Nike Global Talent Director Dan Hanyzewski.

In choosing where to work, Canadian employees have a strong preference for employers with a reputation for good ethical and environmental practices, according to the latest findings from an international workplace survey. The survey, by global workforce solutions leader Kelly Services, finds employees across all age generations gravitate to organizations considered ethically and environmentally responsible, with baby boomers (aged 48-65) more discerning than their younger colleagues amongst Gen Y (aged 18-29) and Gen X (aged 30-47).

Organizations with strong social responsibility practices are being viewed as "employers of choice" by today's job seekers across the globe who overwhelmingly prefer companies that focus beyond performance outcomes and promote larger social goals, according to the latest findings from an international workplace survey. The survey, by global workforce solutions leader Kelly Services, finds employees across all age generations and regions gravitate to organizations with well developed social, ethical and environmental policies. In deciding where to work, baby boomers (aged 48-65) were found to be even more discerning than their younger Gen Y (aged 18-29) and Gen X (aged 30-47) colleagues.

Recruiters who fail to get up to speed with new technology risk losing future talent to competitors – yet social media recruitment strategies remain foreign territory for many in the industry, Trevor Vas, founder of the Australasian Talent Conference, has warned.

An engaged workforce is more important now than ever. But in the current economy organizations may feel their options are limited.

Only 5 per cent of employees recognise HR as being fundamental to business survival, a survey by the European Leadership Programme (ELP) has revealed. The survey also found more than a quarter of employees felt HR expertise was the least important skill for their CEO to possess when leading their organisation through the tough economic climate.

As employers begin the process for setting workforce priorities for 2010 following a difficult year of layoffs and pay cuts, most expect the planning process to be different from 2009, with greater emphasis on defining talent needs and managing associated costs. According to Mercer’s Human capital planning 2010: Defining the talent agenda survey, nearly two-thirds of US organizations participating in the survey plan to put greater emphasis on workforce costs (63 percent) and high-potential employees (60 percent) in the coming year. Other areas to receive more emphasis in 2010 include critical skills and development of workforce contingency plans based on different business scenarios.

A leading thinker on creativity believes attracting talented people is the driving force behind successful cities. In an interview with EurActiv, Richard Florida, author of 'The Rise of the Creative Class', said European countries are battling to attract and retain innovative people. Richard Florida is author of 'Who's Your City?' and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

At a time when talent management has become a much higher priority for companies, many are planning to replace their manual talent management processes with automated ones that integrate compensation, recruiting, performance management, learning management, career development and succession planning, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm.

Many companies make today’s difficult human capital decisions without the data and analytics that can best position their business for tomorrow – a mistake avoidable by using Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP), according to a report released by The Conference Board, the global, independent business membership and research association.

Trying to stay afloat in this downward economy, organizations are cutting back and many are seeing their human capital budgets shrink, affecting leadership recruitment, retention and development. At the same time, they are still concerned with having leaders ready to take the helm when the current slate of executives retires. And as the economy brings more organizational transformations, there is a significant need to have a leader in place to carry their firm through unprecedented change.

Tapping into Talent: the Age Factor and Generational Issues warns employers not to fall into the trap of giving people trendy new generation labels and argues that factors such as age or gender are far more important. A new research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development explores many of the in vogue generational differences employers address when recruiting and retaining good people to sustain businesses performance.

Employees are often a company’s greatest cost. As HR managers are being asked to devise ways to cut the wage bill, Sarah O’Carroll investigates other ways to save costs and make cutting head count the last resort

A study designed and carried out for the European Club for human resources (EChr) by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company, reveals that the economic downturn is accelerating organisational change within HR departments. This will involve the acquisition of different skills and competencies, the need to attract new talent, establishing a leaner HR organisation, and identifying more effective tools to measure HR's value to the business.

HR leaders can play a key role in facilitating the necessary mindset change and the actions that can guide their organisations through the recession, according to a Hewitt report.

HR issues are of growing importance in the Middle East as economies founded on petro-dollars restructure and localize their traditionally expatriate-heavy work forces. Some countries are becoming financial service centers, holiday and medical tourism destinations, and trading and shopping hot spots in readiness for when the oil and gas finally run out.

Employment Branding 1.0 was a monologue. Employment Branding 2.0 is a conversation. And the conversation is happening real time with smart organizations participating proactively to create connections, conversations, and relationships to begin building a sustainable talent advantage.

Larry Barton, an international authority on corporate crisis management applies a corporate insider’s insight in his new book, CRISIS LEADERSHIP NOW: A Real-World Guide to Preparing for Threats, Disaster, Sabotage, and Scandal (McGraw Hill Professional, 2008).

Alongside L&D initiatives, branding and marketing are traditionally the first casualties of a downturn - primarily because the return on these investments is notoriously difficult to measure.

Since the global financial meltdown, there has been great controversy over the large salaries and bonuses that many executives continue to receive. Companies claim that these salaries and bonuses are essential to attracting and retaining talent. Companies, like AIG and Fannie Mae, even go so far as to state that they need to pay retention bonuses to keep employees who created the current financial mess because only the have the expertise to disentangle it.

The economic downturn is driving total rewards and HR professionals all over the world to develop and execute HR strategies that will enable their organizations to effectively manage their way through these turbulent economic times.

While selection of the CEO may be the single most important decision any board of directors makes, new research from Hay Group, a global management consulting firm, found that today’s CEOs feel their role in succession is more important than ever.

Cutting headcount unthinkingly during tough times can have long-term negative consequences. Accenture’s High Performance Business research and its rich client experience show that leading companies outperform their peers across business cycles, in large measure because they innovate continually—and innovation is driven by people. In other words talent management is critical in achieving high performance—and will play a key role in a company’s ability to survive the downturn without being crippled when the upturn comes.

The war for talent has become more difficult in an environment in which so many people are job searching. I'm finding more people writing about differentiating between "A," "B," and "C" players, too. For success, you want to hire every "A" player you can find and figure out how to screen out the "C" players - and, unfortunately, the job market is full of them.

CollegeGrad.com released its survey results on what college students believe to be the best sources of entry-level job information. For the third consecutive year, a majority of respondents, 53 percent, listed the Internet as their primary source of job-related news and data. "Given the current economic outlook, it's critical for college graduates to use all available resources to institute their job search," asserts Adeola Ogunwole, Director of Marketing and Public Relations for CollegeGrad.com. "The Internet should be the backbone of your search process. More and more companies are finding the cost of hiring online to be more effective than on-campus recruiting, thus it is extremely important that job seekers cultivate a thorough approach to their online job search."

There are programs to identify top staff. But identifying those employees with high potential still remains a difficult procedure. Some company processes are less refined than others.

Engaging employees to ensure organizational alignment and commitment is the most important leadership practice to achieve business goals in tough business times, according to more than half of senior leaders and human resource professionals surveyed by Right Management. Right Management (www.right.com) is the talent and career management expert within Manpower, a world leader in the employment services industry.

Employers could be missing out on vital business opportunities by cutting ties with former employees as involuntary turnover continues to rise. The current economic climate provides a good opportunity for employers to recognise the value of employee mobility and rethink relationships with exiting employees, according to Dr Ian Williamson, associate professor of Management at the Melbourne Business School.

Even in a recession, employment branding is still counts. During times of instability where employee trust and loyalty are eroded through short-term cost cutting and job shedding, employee engagement plummets. Many employers in return can count on employees’ feeling less connected to the organization, and being less productive. But even in a crisis where 2.6 million jobs were lost last year, there are organizations that will seize the opportunity and achieve a significant competitive advantage by continuing to build and sustain employer brand strength.

The economy is slow, gas prices are through the roof, and it is causing problems everywhere. Employees are looking for jobs closer to home or something better to offset the recent pillage of their pocketbooks. Employees are looking for ways to cut costs, so help them do it before they look somewhere else. Brand your business as the best in town and you will really set your brand apart during these tough economic times.

According to a recent survey by Softscape, 74% of HR leaders surveyed and 83% within large companies, believe that integrated talent management is mission critical to their organizations.According to Softscape, integrated talent management means establishing the credible linkages between strategic HR processes and systems and the business results and outcomes they drive. The survey found that 73% of HR leaders recognize that a robust talent management strategy positively impact financial performance.

The economic downturn has created new priorities for Human Resources, including a greater focus on organisational performance and less emphasis on recruitment, according to a new survey which claims that HR teams are being asked to do more with less.

A new report, "Severance Practices Around the World," issued by global consultants Right Management provides benchmarking data for human resource professionals and senior executives responsible for separating employees from their employ. Right Management (www.right.com) is the world's leading provider of integrated human capital consulting services and solutions across the employment lifecycle.

What would you do if you had a Human Resources employee who could improve the company’s profit margins, positively impact the cost of goods sold, lower the day’s sales outstanding, and increase the price/earning ratio while liquidating overhead costs to the business - and still deliver flawless transactional and traditional HR services? Most CEO’s would react in two ways:Why is this individual wasting his/her time in an HR department?Why didn’t I demand this level of HR department performance five years ago?

A new survey of 2,500 human resources executives found that nearly one-third of managers do not know how to effectively hire a diverse workforce.