Keep track of your former employees (corporate alumni networks); they can be the future of your business.alumni corporate networks Reading the news today gives a clear status: there are many unemployed people. This means that recruitment is becoming easier. Nevertheless, most HR and Recruitment managers admit it becomes more challenging everyday to recruit the right person for the right function. As a matter of fact, the challenge is not to recruit anymore; it’s to get the Top Talent for your company.
Many think that the war for talent is long gone with the crisis. But the most efficient companies continue to struggle to get the best people – the most qualified, but also the most engaged, pro-active, trustful… Recruiting in some areas – engineers, social media experts, oil/minerals, gaming – is becoming harder every day, and the global ageing of the population puts a lot of pressure on businesses to keep on track. A specific example of a Silicon Valley company, DNAnexus, who offered a $20,000 referral bonus for successful referrals for the relatively common job of software engineer, shows it all.
This month, a lot of thought has been given to this, and I’ll review some here.
First, in the June Edition of the Harvard Business review, Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn), Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh develop on the “New Employer-Employee Compact”. Not only do they mention a few innovative talent management practices (Tours of duty – which I’ll come back to in a later post, and the importance of having “entrepreneurial” employees), they also write about the importance of having highly networked employees to the outside world, as to create value for the organisation, but also with former employees.
As a matter of fact, alumni networks can be highly beneficial to your company. The first benefit can be the opportunity to re-hire former employees, already trained, with a network in the company, and who gained experience in other organisations that could be applied in yours. Then, ex-employees tend to share their insights with former colleagues. If they feel part of a family (made of current and former employees), they can be a source of valued information, focused on your business (they already know it), and even promote your organisation as an employer, as external brand ambassadors.
Consultancy companies, especially Bain, McKinsey & Company (24,000 members in its alumni, including more than 230 CEOs of at least $1 billion in annual revenue), or Booz Allen Hamilton (38,000 alumni) also admit that their alumni can generate a very profitable source of new business. In fact, don’t you tend to work primarily with people you already know?
In the French e-magazine Journal du Net, Fabien Renou makes the same statement. When ex-employees become today’s customers, the network can grow the business. In today’s world, networking is the number one priority for a company, and for its employees, ensuring the marketability of both. So, companies shall help their employees’ network in the best conditions, leverage their presence at fairs, congresses, and reward them for that. As an employee, when my company pays me to go to a congress, it can be sure that not only will I try to learn as much as possible, but I will also present my company under the best scope. The win-win situation here is undeniable.
Nevertheless, most companies fear their employees leaving, are not ready to empower them to externally network, or don’t even really understand why they’re leaving.
in June the CRF Institute ran a report on Talent Management for over 750 Top Employers certified companies in 12 countries. If 77% of global Top Employers have KPIs on Exit management, only 67% have KPIs on Exit Interviews. And those exit interviews are conducted by an HR Officer (83% formally, 14% informal), by managers (40% formal, 39% informal), and through anonymous questionnaires (20% formal, 6% informal). Only 30% of Global Top Employers have an Alumni network. We learn here that companies made the first step into the following of their departures (and sometimes only for their “regrettable losses”), but still have to improve the follow up, and the acceptance that letting employees go in the best conditions can be the start of a future excellent and relatively cheap sourcing of competent, engaged, and highly trained talents, as well as the source for new businesses.
Last but not least, a great example, also featured in Harvard Business Review, is HoneyWell’s strategy to tackle tough times. Instead of re-organising (i.e.: firing people), they decided to grant Furloughs, aka unpaid leaves. This practice allowed them to power-up very fast when the economy was recovering, without having to find the good people who might have found another job. They put them on hold (with various challenges), but were able to get them back on board very fast, and to answer to clients’ demands in a very effective manner.
And you, how much do you care for your ex-employees?
