Michael Specht

An old saying by Heraclitus a Greek philosopher that “Nothing endures but change”. If this was true in 500 BC, then today if you are not preparing for change you are dead in the water. Period!

Today I was reading a Gartner research report by Thomas Otter, aka Vendorprisey, The Effects of Social Software on Your Employer Brand (Hat Tip: Amit Avasthi) which got me thinking about change.

Then I came across a post by Don Tapscott on Grown Up Digital about how libraries in the US are having to adapt to encourage Generation Y to visit. Resulting by the way in a 25% increase in attendance!

So what do these two things have in common?

Customers are changing and so you must evolve to survive. Even more so in tough economic times. 

Now how are you changing to stay relevant? Depending on your view what do employers, candidates, employees or the board really want from you in 2009? How can you deliver it?

What should you be upgrading? Your employer branding? Your careers web site? Your referral program? Your Resume? Your Compensation programs? Your Performance Review programs? Your strategic plan?

Think about getting a 25% improvement by changing to suit your audience.

If you want to learn more about how to deal with change read Who Moved My Cheese?.

Photo credit: nguyenanhquan from Flickr.

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Just a quick final post for the year.

Firstly wishing all my readers a great break and a fantastic new year, be safe and make sure you spend time with your family.

Now to look back on 2008.

• The year started with a bang working fulltime as Senior Project Manager for Nortel looking after Corporate Systems for Asia Pacific. For followers on Twitter they would have seen my crazy tweets working until 2am and then starting again 5am.
• By June I was out on my own and had set up Inspecht, with far more control over my hours, but a lot less money
• The blog & Inspecht both have traffic around 9,000 visitors a month, compared with around 3,000 a year ago
• I became PRINCE2 certified, as well as Certified in the Principles of Change Management
• As part of my work on Inspecht
  • I have built 4 different one day workshops to help HR departments get going on technology projects on project establishment, change management, risk management, and in flight project health checks.
  • Published a report on job referrals (which is being updated in the next month)
  • Published numerous checklists to HR and recruiters 
  • Published an eBook on recruitment today
• Finally created the HR Futures Conference which will be held in Feb 2009

Overall a successful year.

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About a month ago I decided to create an eBook based on some themes from my blog. After looking over the posts I decided to focus on the new trends and practices in recruitment. The eBook is finished and available for purchase at A$15.

Why am I charging if it is based on my blog that is free? Well first up I have pay rent somehow ;-).

No actually the eBook pulls together many of the key trends in recruitment today in a single easy to read 40 page document. I also believe that people tend to value and pay attention to something when they part with money.

Below is a short overview.

There are many ways to find the right candidate and like most things in life, some are more effective than others. Over the last 10 years, the process of finding candidates has moved from predominately print media to online. While this migration has been significant, the real changes have only just begun. With the Internet changing the way we work and communicate, how you find and engage with the workforce to identify the right candidate is also changing.

• Some of the key trends in recruitment
• Where candidates can be hiding
• How to engage with candidates and get them to want to work for your organisation
• How to use free tools to identify potential applicants
• To which aspects of social media you should be paying attention

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A couple of months ago Telstra joined Twitter via their ISP Big Pond, I and others wrote harshly about how the implementation had been a failure. Since that time the Telstra team have been taking on board the feedback and have made significant changes to the way they engage with people online.  After initially trying to go alone they have engaged with some of the best minds on social media in Australia to change their approach. The changes have been so dramatic I am surprised and impressed.

The original engagement via Twitter was:

@bushgeek Got a BigPond® query?! Ask about BigPond® via this link http://tinyurl.com/ 5ufhvf & a BigPond consultant will email you back.

Now this is a typical customer engagement via Twitter:

@jackmcintyre It’s a known issue being worked on,we suggest keep calling Tech to get it more attention to get it fixed quicker.

They are also having a bit of fun with people, yesterday was games day:

@BigPondTeam Wow! There are some fast people out there. #1 track currently is ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga for $0.99 and its DRM Free! about 17 hours ago from TweetDeck

@BigPondTeam Who can tell me what is the #1 track on BigPond Music, and how much does it cost to purchase? about 18 hours ago from TweetDeck

@BigPondTeam We are going to try a few different things today, so feel free to play along!! #BPS

They are generating interest in some of the services on offer and yes this is marketing but in a fun way. I played along and to tell you the truth will go back to the Big Pond site to check out what is there.

Telstra also ran a short survey yesterday to get feedback from a number of people on how they were performing on Twitter. Before filling in the survey I thought I would ask my Twitter followers their thoughts as well. Here are a few.

pollyemj @mspecht my only interaction with @BigPondTeam was a bit spooky - just weird to be contacted randomly after i mentioned them in a tweet about 19 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mspecht

joshsharp @mspecht after a terrible start they very quickly took on feedback and turned it around. they’ve actually done a quite good job.. about 19 hours ago from twhirl in reply to mspecht

jurgen @mspecht I think they’re doing a good job. It’s personal and personable. Friendly and forthright. Not just an announcement stream. about 19 hours ago from NatsuLion in reply to mspecht

ourfounder @mspecht I’m obviously across the big pond,but looking over their tweet history I like the voice and regularity of the posts. Good info too. about 19 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to mspecht

After further clarification from @pollyemj I found this interaction was at the start during the corporate robot response period.  The overall feeling matched mine. Terrible start, great improvement.

This gets me to wonder, the employees at Big Pond who are working with their customers in a more human and open fashion are they more engaged employees? Do they now enjoy their job more? Do they trust their employer?

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The Great Place to Work Institute has launched their 2009 program partnering with BRW. They have over 20 years experience in measuring employee engagement from all over the globe, they define a great place to work as one where trust exists.

At the heart of our definition of a great place to work - a place where employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with - is the idea that a great workplace is measured by the quality of the three, interconnected relationships that exist there:

• The relationship between employees and management.
• The relationship between employees and their jobs/company.
• The relationship between employees and other employees.

The 2008 Great Places to Work in Australia were:

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
2. Dow Corning
3. Google
4. McDonald’s
5. Morgan Stanley
6. NetApp
7. Russell Investments
8. SEEK Limited

Nominations are open now, so if you feel your workplace is a great place to work head over and nominate it!

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