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News for friends of the Iowa Lee Hecht Harrison Global Partner offices. |
SPRING 2005 |
Richard L. Reasons
General Manager / Partner When you're seeking professional resources, what criteria do you use? You likely look at the performance differentiators.In this issue, our focus is on bottom-line performance differentiators. Whether it's
Debbie Noe, our Job Market Consultant, working with employers and clients to accelerate job search success, or diverse business leaders utilizing our proprietary Core, Edge, and Agility leadership framework to achieve greater results. It's our proven processes, world-class technology, and customized personal support for each client that truly differentiates us from the competition.
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New Key Role for
Outplacement Companies According to our recent survey of 317 senior human resources executives, identifying high quality job leads for outplaced individuals has emerged as a major characteristic human resources executives find extremely desirable in an outplacement provider.This finding is notable, says Bob Wigger, Partner, CRG Lee Hecht Harrison in Des Moines, because as recently as five years ago, it wasn't seen as outplacement's role to actually connect clients with job leads. "Companies turned to outplacement providers to give their former employees the skills, resources, and guidance necessary to find and land opportunities themselves. When the recession started, however, we realized our clients needed professional assistance to uncover appropriate leads in an extremely tight job market." Wigger says, "Clearly, HR executives now place a premium on this approach to accelerating clients' job searches, especially as the burgeoning recovery has been largely jobless to date." On a scale of 1-10, where "10" means absolutely essential and "1" means not at all desirable, respondents gave identifying high quality job leads for outplaced individuals a mean score of 8.5. While major indicators like "having professionally trained and certified counselors" (9.2), "satisfaction of outplaced individuals" (9.0), and "continuous/consistent counseling throughout outplacement contract period" (8.9) rated higher, nine other factors ranked lower. These included "understanding of our industry and outplaced individuals' job skills" (8.2), "professional environment for outplaced individuals" (8.1), and "ability to consistently serve our needs in all or most of our international locations" (7.3).
Wigger notes that CRG Lee Hecht Harrison has long had as its mission of "connecting people to work," not only through its consulting services, but also through proprietary job banks, resume databases, and professional job developers. "The economic downturn, however, made the job market particularly difficult for our clients to negotiate. So, in spring 2002 Lee Hecht Harrison offices began to hire professionals for a new post called ' Job Market Consultant.' Wigger explains that these specialists, with extensive contacts and in-depth knowledge of their local markets, work closely with the company's outplacement consultants to identify and share potential employment opportunities with clients, giving them a competitive advantage. "At the time, customers viewed what we were doing as a novel, proactive initiative. Now just a short time later, it's viewed as a critical aspect of outplacement delivery, and a clear competitive differentiation here in Central Iowa."At CRG Lee Hecht Harrison we help our customers to maximize organizational and individual successes through products and services such as AIM®, our proprietary three-stage business process that combines dedicated, personalized career consulting with productivity tools, including Career Resources Network™, Job Search Work Teams™, the work of our
Job Market Consultant, and numerous other learning opportunities. To see first-hand how your organization can utilize and benefit from our more than 30 years of performance leadership in career management and leadership consulting services, please contact either Bob Wigger or Dick Reasons. We welcome your comments and feedback.
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The New Leadership Framework
| Leading an organization has never been easy, but today's executives are under increased pressure to reduce costs, while retaining key employees and maintaining a competitive advantage. To gain a clearer perspective on how these challenges unfold in different organizations, we interviewed 100 senior-level leaders at multinational Fortune 500 companies, as well as smaller companies, universities, and professional service organizations. The findings are presented in our report entitled Leadership at the Core and on the Edge: A New Framework. Our research reveals that many executives are finding that traditional leadership models do not adequately address today's challenges. They would welcome new leadership tools, ideas, and best practices to help them be more effective, including a new leadership framework that is more flexible and dynamic - one that also addresses the many paradoxical behaviors they are required to demonstrate. Leadership at the Core and on the Edge:
LHH's New Framework The survey findings confirmed what we've seen over the past six years: the need for a new leadership framework that is fluid enough to be applicable in constantly shifting times. Based on our experience, we have created a new leadership framework called Core, Edge, and Agility. This framework describes the paradoxical behaviors that leaders must develop, | | as well as the agility needed to select behaviors based on what is required in any given situation. In the current business climate, we believe it is important to take development of leaders to the next level by emphasizing the combination of leadership effectiveness and agility needed to drive business results. Core, Edge, and Agility: Defined - Core refers to applying behaviors to things that are "known" and driving consistency and accuracy through operational expertise and proven practices.
- Edge refers to applying behaviors to things that are "unknown" and pushing creatively and strategically into areas of risk and possibility.
- Agility allows leaders to enhance their influence and effectiveness amid Core and Edge situations. Agility is the ability to proactively select and apply appropriate behaviors to a wide range of contradictory situations to create change. Agility enables a leader to Analyze, Focus, and Shift to intentionally drive business outcomes.
To request a copy of the complete report, or to learn how we can help your leaders meet the challenges of today's dynamic business environment, please contact Sherry Barrett, Vice President and Practice Leader, Organizational Development Services, CRG Lee Hecht Harrison, 515-453-9590. |
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Good Career Advice Parents Can Give
With the tightened job market, many grads may look homeward for advice and help, but the problem is that today's job market is very different from a generation ago and parents may find it hard to give relevant advice on finding that first job.Here are a few suggestions for parents whose graduates may be seeking employment in this tight job market: - Assist them with networking. Encourage them to reach out to your business and social contacts and make suggestions as to what they might say to each.
- Help them prepare for their interviews. Tell them about your interview experiences and the kinds of questions you have been asked.
- Encourage them to become students of the game. They should educate themselves on common business terminology. They should also watch and learn from how successful businesspeople present themselves. Appearances are critical to get in the door.
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