Choosing Your Path: Why an MBA is the Way to Go

3D figure with an MBA. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Some claim that an MBA is not absolutely necessary for you to embark on a career in business; so then what is the point of getting one? There are several obvious benefits to an online Masters in Business Administration Specialization and a few not-so-obvious ones as well. Among the obvious benefits are that it equips you with skills in management and a well-rounded knowledge-base to prepare you for a broad range of tasks and responsibilities. Continue Reading

What Employers Want: 12 HR Hot Buttons

Dawn Dugan, Salary.com contributing writer

The competition is fierce in today’s job market, and standing out in the crowd is more important — and challenging — than ever before.

How do you know you’re giving employers exactly what they are looking for? This article explores 12 human resources hot buttons. Continue Reading

8 College Degrees That Will Earn Your Money Back

Defining the Masters in Project Management

When considering a master’s degree in the field of project management, it can be difficult to decide which path is truly right for you. Without doing the proper research, a master’s degree in project management can easily be confused with a master’s degree in human resources or a master’s in business administration. What is the difference between these programs? Which one is better? Let’s find out the truth behind these degree’s and their titles, as well as how they can help you reach your professional goals. Continue Reading

13 Best Jobs for College Graduates

As college graduates prepare to enter the real world, they are hoping for a better job market to search for potential opportunities.  Hopefully, graduates will find positions in their respective fields.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, some areas are expected to flourish, leading to more jobs in this decade.  If you are a graduate who plans to work in one of the following fields, then your chances of getting a job look pretty good. Continue Reading

Hiring Expected More Slowly in Second Quarter of 2012

Job seekers should expect more hiring, as we head into Spring 2012; though at a reduced rate.

Hiring in professional fields is likely to continue rising in the second quarter but at a slower pace than forecast for the first quarter, a new Robert Half survey shows. A net 2 percent of executives interviewed for the Robert Half Professional Employment Report plan to add full-time staff in the second three months of 2012, down from 10 percent last quarter. The biggest trend in the survey is the increase in the number of respondents who anticipate no change in hiring activity: 89 percent versus 78 percent last quarter. Continue Reading

More Employers Hiring Military Veterans, Yet Assistance Still Needed

The transition for military veterans back into civilian life is not easy.  This is also true for employers who want to hire them, but need a better understanding of what they have to offer.

A new poll from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released this week shows that the majority of organizations—64 percent—have hired military veterans during the past 36 months, an increase over the 53 percent that reported the same in 2010.

Though more than six in 10 organizations have hired military veterans during the past three years, the number could hit 10 in 10 if only the civilian and military sectors widely understood the other’s job skills jargon. Continue Reading

Facebook: An Indicator of Future Job Success?

Employers may learn all they need to about potential employees through one popular social media website.

Researchers have tapped into what may become a new, and better, tool for human resource professionals trying to predict the success of job candidates. It’s called Facebook. Continue Reading

Recruiter for Recruiting Firms

Considered working in Human Resources or Recruiting? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. Continue Reading

HR’s Missing Link

Why Human Capital Supply Chains are critical for post-recession success.

During the recession of 2008/2009, websites like Forbes’ Layoff Tracker displayed a running list of companies that laid off hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of workers. Certainly, if CEOs had a more fluid method to relate slowing business performance to a decreased need for human capital in real-time they would have been able to gradually ramp down their staffing levels rather than decrease them so abruptly and publically.

As the economy rebounds, your company will be vying with competitors for the same top talent. Who will win? The company that has been most strategic during the downturn by investing in streamlined processes and best-in-class technologies will be best poised to react quickly and snap up the most qualified talent first. So now’s your chance.

It’s essential that your company calibrate and fine tune your workforce, so you can quickly respond to changing market conditions in small steps rather than in painful mass layoffs or mass rehire campaigns where workforce quality is likely to suffer.

We must all manage our human capital as efficiently and effectively as we manage all of the other parts of our business. It’s time to streamline, optimize and apply integrated technology solutions to human resources. Translating manufacturing and distribution supply chain lessons learned at Toyota, Walmart and Dell to the human capital supply chain is an obvious idea. An obvious idea few are implementing.

Establishing a Human Capital Supply Chain means you link business strategy, business performance, strategic workforce planning, staffing, onboarding and offboarding for improved corporate financial management and greater business success.

Firms that understand their human capital needs on a real-time basis should not be taken by surprise. Rather, they’ll be in tune with market dynamics and able to quickly react with agility, ramping down their workforce less aggressively or fighting back to pick-up core talent without delay.

For companies that want to grow in a post-recession economy, it’s time to refocus and apply the lessons learned from optimizing your product lines to optimizing your workforce. Here’s how you can start:

1. Understand your company’s total spend on human capital. This is a key input to the business ROI and the first step of any Human Capital Supply Chain management program. This requires you and your CFO to get your arms around both your internal (wages, benefits and taxes) and external (accounts payable) human capital spending.
2. Break down barriers between HR, procurement and senior leadership. Establishing a Human Capital Supply Chain management program requires a major change management effort for all stakeholders. You’ll need to speak a shared language, utilize each other’s strengths and unify your human capital goals.
3. Build on existing (even somewhat disjointed) business functions. To employ an end-to-end Human Capital Supply Chain management business process, you’ll want to start with <<this example Ch 6>> and tailor it to your own organization.
4. Automate. Automate. Automate. The use of technology in automating the end-to-end business process is a common way to reduce costs and speed turnaround time. It’s also vital for real-time measurement and management of human capital.
5. Embrace the value in staffing suppliers. The bias toward permanent staff needs to change in order to be more nimble in today’s marketplace. Transform your relationships with staffing firms into strategic partnerships in order to best enable Human Capital Supply Chain goals.

The recession we’re pulling out of could be the turning point for the global industry and our HR executives. The call to streamline. The catalyst for innovation. The moment that will change our industries forever.

It is vital that all of us – CEOs, HR executives, procurement and staffing industry executives – answer this call to action. It will ensure that we’re ready for the post-recession ramp-up in hiring and the skill shortages that will return as the Baby Boomer generation actually begins to retire.

There is no doubt that if you want your company to lead in the post-recession talent grab, you must start building your Human Capital Supply Chain now. It’s your decision. Are you ready to get going or are you going to wait to be overtaken by competitors that act first?

By Tim Giehll

Tim Giehll is co-author of Human Capital Supply Chains: Just in Time Talent to Boost Profits. With over 30 years of technology, staffing and manufacturing expertise, Giehll serves as CEO of Bond Talent US and Bond eEmpACT.