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Quality System Supervisor

company:
A top semiconductor and electronic manufacturing company

Responsibilities
1.Address system issue to improve the quality management system by setting up /optimizing the procedures
2.Plan and perform internal audit, report & follow up the actions
3.Coordinate for the 2nd or 3rd party audit, report & follow up the actions
4.Prepare and organize management review
5.Superviser SPC engineer to introduce and implement SPC system
6.Lead quality system training
7.Supervise the documents administrator for document control
8.Supervise calibration administrator to administrate calibration system
9.Supervise the complaint administrator¡¯s work
10.Other standard compliance

Qualifications
1.Bachelor degree, Engineering Background
2.3+ years quality work experience in high-tech macnufacturing quality team
3.Familiar with ISO9001 system and SPC
4.Internal auditor certification is required
5.Good English in oral and written comunication
6.Good computer skills in the use of Excel,Word¡­.
7.Work independently and Initiative
8.Good team work

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_ic054sh@dacare.com’

Maintenance engineer China

company:
A top semiconductor and electronic manufacturing company

Responsibilities
1.Perform troubleshooting and repairing work when machine breakdown.
2.Responsible for implementing the preventive maintenance for production machine as scheduled.
3.Responsible for developing the preventive maintenance schedule
4.Work with process engineer and other production people on process improvement project.
5.Support the implementation of new project or new production line introduction with other department.
6.Arrange daily work for maintenance technicians or workers and monitor their work results.

Qualifications
1.Bachelor degree, major in electronic Engineering or Mechanical Engineering.
2.Have 3 years machine maintenance experience.
3.Fluent both in written and oral English.
4.Be a team player and have a good problem solving skills.
5.cleanroom experience is a plus
6.If necessary , be able to work with shift

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_ic053sh@dacare.com’

Employee Performance Management: What’s Gnu at the Zoo

The San Diego Zoological Society, which employs 2,600 people, this year introduced an employee performance management system whose ratings will determine managers¡¯ pay raises. It¡¯s part of an emphasis on employee accountability outlined in the organization¡¯s strategic plan.
By Todd Henneman
——————————————————————————–
or years, employee performance evaluations were a low priority at the Zoological Society of San Diego, with no uniform metrics and no consequences for ignoring appraisal paperwork sent by the human resources department.

Different versions of the one-page form were used. Managers didn¡¯t judge subordinates on goals, but on a nebulous sense of how they were doing. Some employees hadn¡¯t been reviewed in years¡ªa few of them had waited decades.

“It wasn¡¯t taken seriously, and it didn¡¯t hold any credence because there was not a pay-for-performance system here,” says Tim Mulligan, director of human resources for the not-for-profit Zoological Society, which operates the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Zoo¡¯s Wild Animal Park and the Conservation and Research for Endangered Species scientific center. Managers received annual raises, which were essentially cost-of-living increases not linked to their performance, Mulligan says. “HR would send out a form, say, ¡®This review is due,¡¯ but then would never follow up to see that it was turned in.”

That is changing. The Zoological Society, which employs 2,600 people, this year introduced an employee performance management system whose ratings will determine managers¡¯ pay raises. It¡¯s part of an emphasis on employee accountability outlined in the organization¡¯s strategic plan, which was being finalized when the nonprofit organization hired Mulligan two years ago.

Like an increasing number of organizations, the Zoological Society, whose revenues in 2005 reached $176 million, wanted a Web-based employee-appraisal system that helps guide managers through the process and reduces rote work.

The demand for software that accomplishes this is growing. Fueled by the performance and succession management segments, the talent management software market will increase by 20 percent this year, surpassing $2.3 billion in revenue, according to an estimate by technology consultancy Yankee Group. Of 244 large and midsize organizations surveyed by consulting firm Towers Perrin, 34 percent said their spending on human resource technology increased in 2005 compared with 2004. Only 15 percent said spending decreased; the rest of the respondents said spending was flat.

This year, the Zoological Society¡¯s management team, which consists of 225 employees classified as assistant managers or higher, falls under the Web-based employee appraisal system. Next year, the practice will be expanded to include all exempt employees.

With built-in prompts for completing reviews, performance management applications standardize the format of performance reviews and free human resource professionals from the administrative tasks of reminding managers that appraisals are due. They also tend to be affordable ways to update appraisal processes, have multiple raters and enable timely feedback on performance.

Setting goals
Mulligan identified the primary objectives for the Zoological Society¡¯s new system: establish impartial employee goals directly linked to the organization¡¯s goals; include a midyear review to ensure an ongoing dialogue and to prevent end-of-the-year surprises; and require year-end reviews whose ratings will be used to determine merit increases.

Mulligan also realized his diverse workforce, which includes everyone from world-renowned scientists to teenage food-service workers, needed metrics to measure performance, as well as easy-to-use software. He created two teams¡ªone looking at vendors, the other at skills that characterized a successful leader within the organization, regardless of their department.

“We didn¡¯t want to throw this down our managers¡¯ throats,” he says of involving employees in the planning. “We wanted to have them work on and approve of it.”

The process led to performance appraisals based on two categories: goals and leadership competencies. At the beginning of the year, each manager chooses five goals, at least three of which must be linked to organizational objectives. Those goals are based on everything from guest satisfaction to revenue.

The other two goals are what Mulligan calls “wild cards”¡ªtargets pertinent to their specific area. Together, the performance goals make up 50 percent of the overall employee appraisal.

The other half comes from ratings on leadership competencies. Those were identified by 220 managers and then whittled to a list of six, each with five sub-factors. For example, the competency of “professionalism” includes scores on teamwork, communication, interpersonal relations, Zoological Society mission and customer focus.

Halogen Software of Ottawa was chosen as the vendor. Halogen has gained a reputation as an appropriate choice for midsize companies. Business-information provider Hoover¡¯s Inc. estimates that Halogen¡¯s sales reached $4.2 million in 2004. Halogen declined to disclose its current revenue but says it is profitable and has added 400 customers during the past two years. The company also says a nondisclosure agreement prevents it from divulging the value of its contract with the San Diego Zoo and the length of the agreement.

In a market report last year, research firm Gartner rated Halogen and competitors Softscape of Massachusetts and SuccessFactors of California each as “strong positives” based on criteria that included product capability, affordability, scalability, viability, market momentum and vision.

Halogen¡¯s eAppraisal performance management solution lets employees record accomplishments in an online journal that they may share with their manager. Mulligan says the tool helps to craft an accurate year-end review. “Many of our people are very involved with organizations in conservation and in the animal world,” he says. “We don¡¯t want those things to be forgotten by management at the end of the year when they do their review.”

The performance management solution¡¯s other tools include a “comment helper” that offers feedback templates that automatically insert pronouns using the correct gender and a “language sensitivity checker” that flags offensive words and suggests alternatives. The company¡¯s product tour shows the language checker suggesting “overqualified” to replace “old,” for example.

Many human resource professionals feel an increasing demand to build business cases for HR investments and to calculate their return on investment. Last year, even the publisher of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator introduced a guide for measuring the ROI of the venerable personality-type test.

As a not-for-profit organization, the Zoological Society is more concerned about the “return on mission” than its ROI for the technology, Mulligan says. But Halogen¡¯s president, Paul Loucks, points to studies by research firm IDC as proof that his clients can expect a healthy return on their investment.

IDC determined that Amcor Sunclipse North America, a division of Australian packaging manufacturing company Amcor, saved more than $300,000 a year since introducing Halogen¡¯s eAppraisal. In a separate analysis, IDC estimated that Halogen client Howard Regional Health System of Indiana might see a 164 percent return on its investment, in terms of cost savings.

Flexibility of the web
The Zoological Society¡¯s adoption of a Web-based solution also reflects another trend. One of the notable changes in the past five years has been the shift to Internet-based appraisal systems from client-server platforms, in which programs are kept on a central computer connected through a network to PCs. “As long as they have a Web connection, managers can write appraisals at home,” Loucks says.

Loucks expects that organizations will expand from using Web-based appraisal systems to adding compensation and succession planning processes. In fact, Mulligan lists such a flexible system among the reasons he liked Halogen.

“Those types of processes will be adopted by more companies over the next few years,” Loucks says. “It¡¯s not clear whether the new customers will do it in steps or whether they¡¯ll go for more of the big bang.”

Not everyone sees Web-based employee appraisals as all good news. Anthony Chelte, dean of Dillard College of Business Administration at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, says the key benefits of online employee appraisals are the timeliness of feedback and the efficiency of eliminating paperwork.

“When you look at the ratio of individuals to HR people in terms of the number of reviews that have to be looked at for completeness, accuracy and legal concerns, it¡¯s probably far more efficient,” he says.

Chelte cautions against relying on online appraisals to deliver feedback, saying one-on-one discussions are as important. “I do not think the online appraisal system is a good proxy for delivering feedback,” he says. “The whole social context is gone. It takes the entire human element out of the mix.”

Halogen executives say their system is not intended to replace one-on-one appraisal meetings, but rather to simplify preparation for it.

Mulligan says he ensured the “human element” remains intact for zoo staffers. The appraisal must be delivered in person, with the supervisor printing and reviewing it with the subordinate or the two discussing results as they go over it on the computer screen. “It has to be done with two people together,” he says. “You can¡¯t just pull it up and read your review.”

The supervisor then must certify that the in-person meeting occurred. “I don¡¯t want us to go back to where we were before, with employees and managers not having this face-to-face dialogue on performance,” Mulligan says.

Michele Stancer began working at the zoo 28 years ago, starting in food service while in high school and working her way up to animal-care manager. She describes her experience with the new appraisal system as positive because of discussions with her boss about setting goals and basing raises on performance.

“If you perform well, you¡¯ll get more,” Stancer says. “I think people should be held accountable. I¡¯ve been here a long time. You see people who are ¡®working in retirement,¡¯ and that¡¯s not good for anyone.”

Mulligan says the Web-based appraisal process has helped the zoo attract talent. “What I found is that it¡¯s a recruiting tool,” he says. “A manager who starts here sees that we have a program like this where you have goals and objectives and are given timely feedback and paid for the work that you do. As we come into the modern world here in HR, we have to provide programs like this.”

Speed Recruiting in China

R¨¦sum¨¦ flow is strong and time-to-hire is fast in Asia¡¯s largest labor pool. Broad statements in the U.S. media about an impending talent shortage in China are not borne out by more granular data on the labor supply and direct reports from companies engaged in heavy recruiting.
By Fay Hansen ——————————————————————————–
San Francisco-based Freeborders reviewed 25,000 job applications in China last year, conducted 3,400 first-round and 800 second-round interviews, and hired 251 new employees for its IT outsourcing services facility in Shenzhen. Recruiting is proceeding at roughly the same pace this year, with more than 2,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s flowing in each month for 30 to 50 positions.

Gomez Inc., another U.S.-based high-tech firm, moved from no presence in China to a fully functioning R&D facility for new-product development in less time than it takes many companies to hire a single advanced-degree engineer in the United States. The company posted positions in May and opened its new Beijing office in July.

Despite widespread predictions of looming talent shortages in China, where GDP growth is now clocking in at 10.2 percent, Freeborders¡¯ recruiters are swimming in r¨¦sum¨¦s in Shenzhen and the company¡¯s CEO discounts reports of acute shortages of managerial and high-level technical workers. Gomez¡¯s executives anticipate no difficulties in building headcount in Beijing.

Broad statements in the U.S. media about an impending talent shortage in China are not borne out by more granular data on the labor supply and direct reports from companies engaged in heavy recruiting.

Hard data offer no evidence of tighter labor markets, even in China¡¯s first-tier cities. In 2005, 295,000 new university graduates looked for work in Beijing alone. The highly developed Chinese university system is pumping out an ever-larger annual pool of candidates whose skills more closely match the needs of high-growth multinational companies than graduates in the United States and most of Europe.

Simultaneously, China¡¯s recruiting infrastructure is growing to meet the needs of employers, including multinationals expanding in the urban areas. The number of online job boards in China hit 2,000 this year and online sites have become the dominant form of recruiting for large companies, according to BusinessForum China. Last year, Monster Worldwide bought a 40 percent stake in one of the largest players, ChinaHR.com, which currently offers 480,000 jobs and 7.5 million registered job seekers.

Bulking up
Freeborders announced in June that it plans to quadruple the size of its Shenzhen facility to accommodate 2,000 employees, who will work in coordination with the company¡¯s U.S. and European project managers. Freeborders has stepped up its recruiting efforts to sign on hundreds of new employees in short order.

“We plan to hire several hundred graduates majoring in software development in a month or two as trainee developers,” Freeborders CEO John Cestar reports.

With revenue up 45 percent in 2005 and year-over-year bookings up 30 percent, Freeborders is a high-growth firm recruiting in a high-growth market.

In Shenzhen, Freeborders can pull from the 600,000 technology professionals who live there or the thousands who pour in from other regions of China every month. Most of Freeborders¡¯ new hires come from outside the Shenzhen area.

Shenzhen is home to 3,000 software companies. GDP growth for the metropolitan area is topping 15 percent a year. IDC forecasts that China will be the largest IT services market in the Asia-Pacific region by 2010, with a 24 percent share of IT spending in the region.

But those growth rates do not necessarily translate into tight labor markets. Instead, they act as a magnet for new investment and job seekers. China¡¯s Ministry of Science and Technology is pouring money into incentives for investment in new technologies, particularly in e-commerce, logistics, design and finance, and the Education Ministry is moving in tandem with university programs that boost the supply of tech candidates.

When Freeborders moved into China five years ago, it recruited 20 Chinese nationals who were working for software multinationals in North America and Europe. This core group then recruited for Freeborders¡¯ Shenzhen expansion. The company now runs a nationwide recruitment program through its own network, Web sites and job fairs.

“Our strategy is to focus our hiring for the key technologies that we know North American and European companies have demand for,” Cestar says. “We determine these needs through client surveys and training-needs questionnaires with our workers. Our software graduates speak good English and become highly valuable resources after going through our rigorous training program.”

Freeborders has not been forced to accelerate salary increases or bonuses to meet its recruiting goals.

“We find that many of our employees choose us because of the opportunity to work with Western clients,” Cestar says. “It¡¯s a source of prestige and they know it¡¯s good for their careers to deliver services to Western companies. That¡¯s our main selling point. When we survey our teams, compensation is usually the third or fourth reason they chose Freeborders.”

Freeborders minimizes its use of expatriates, but most of its senior managers in China have worked or been educated in the United States. This is changing, however.

“We are leveraging our current employees to recruit heavily within their personal networks to find managerial talent,” Cestar says. “We also plan to promote the next group of managers from within.”

Securing the managerial talent in China is a top priority for the company.

“It is a challenge simply because the universities are churning out so many young and highly skilled technology workers that there are not enough middle managers to handle the massive labor pool,” Cestar notes. “But it¡¯s a manageable challenge. Over time, this shortage will shrink as the junior-level technology workers grow in experience to become middle managers. It¡¯s only a matter of time.”

Meanwhile, Freeborders¡¯ global structure allows the company to segment tasks when necessary.

“Because we¡¯re a U.S.-based company, we mitigate a lot of the risk by having a strong U.S.-based project and technical management component to our teams,” Cestar reports. “They essentially work with the client on site and with our offshore teams at all hours of the day.”

Starting from scratch
While Freeborders is calmly recruiting more than 1,000 IT workers in Shenzhen, Gomez is expanding its R&D staff in Beijing, bringing in additional support staff and basking in the new recruiting environment that China offers.

“We were up and running in Beijing with 20 R&D employees in 12 weeks,” reports Richard Darer, vice president and CFO of Gomez.

“We never could have done that in our U.S. office near Boston, no matter what we threw at it. The talent pool is so much smaller in the United States that there simply isn¡¯t sufficient r¨¦sum¨¦ flow.” The company pulled in 3,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s to fill the Beijing jobs.

“In the United States, we use job boards like Monster, but we end up hiring contract recruiters,” Darer says. “The universities in China are turning out so much talent that it¡¯s a different situation.”

In its site search, Gomez considered Shanghai, but it settled on Beijing because of its exceptionally strong university system. The company¡¯s new facility is located near Tsinghua University, China¡¯s leading science and technology institution. The Beijing area is home to 274,000 tech workers, with scientists and engineers accounting for 83 percent of the total, according to the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

Gomez provides Web application performance management solutions for 400 companies worldwide, including Amazon, Yahoo and Best Buy. Headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, with European operations centered in Hamburg, Germany, the company reported Q1 2006 revenue growth up 50 percent compared with Q1 2005. As its first step in expanding into China, CEO Jaime Ellertson personally recruited Yuan Cheng, a Chinese national with an engineering degree from Tsinghua University and a doctorate from MIT, as general manager for China.

The new office will triple Gomez¡¯s product development staff by the end of 2006. To recruit the first group for the Beijing location, Cheng tapped job boards such as ChinaHR.com and targeted university online job sites. The company¡¯s online job postings for China include JavaScript software engineers and technical support engineers.

“Cheng screened the r¨¦sum¨¦s to find candidates with the right technical skills and to eliminate job jumpers,” Darer says.

From the 3,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s, Cheng invited 200 candidates for interviews, most with two to five years of experience and 40 percent with graduate degrees.

Large groups of candidates attended high-level presentations on the company, followed by one-on-one interviews that used the presentations as the context for detailed technical questions.

“Our challenge was screening out candidates, not finding sufficient talent,” Darer says.

He worked with technology companies operating in India before joining Gomez, and notes the sharp differences there.

“If you want to fill two positions in India, you make offers to four candidates because only two of those will actually show up to start the job,” he says.

During Gomez¡¯s initial recruiting drive in Beijing, a few candidates who received offers didn¡¯t accept because of compensation issues.

“Our challenge in China is that compensation is beginning to move up,” Darer says. “But the economic cost ratio for the United States and China is 3-to-1, so even if compensation creeps up in Beijing, there is still a huge cost advantage.”

Darer is not concerned about retention in the Beijing office.

“We work on the cutting edge of the Web and e-commerce, and part of the attraction for our employees is the opportunity to work on exciting and sexy stuff,” he notes. “You can see the gleam in their eyes.”

The R&D employees in Beijing develop new products with worldwide reach and the company now plans to hire direct-sales and support staff, but with different language skills.

“When companies set up R&D in China, they have to think about language proactively,” Darer advises. “For some of our key managerial and customer support positions, our employees must be fluent in English. But we do not require fluent English from our engineers.”

Darer, who received an engineering degree and an MBA from Harvard, sees his HR responsibilities as a logical part of his work as CFO.

“As we all know, our assets walk out the door every night at 5,” he says.

Managing talent is a critical component in the company¡¯s financial success.

“And the talent in Beijing is well beyond our expectations,” he notes.

China’s West Attracts 300 Bln Yuan Investment from East

Firms based in the east of China have invested more than 300 billion yuan (about US$37.5 billion) in western China, Fu Ziying, assistant minister of Commerce, said on Wednesday.

The 10,000 east China-based enterprises include state-and private-owned enterprises as well as foreign companies, Fu said at a press conference at the 11th China Chongqing Investment and Global Sourcing Fair (CCISF).

Abundant resources, preferential policies, and cheap land and labor in the region spelt opportunities for investors. The rapid expansion of manufacturing, high-tech, power, and tourism industries in the region has added to its attractiveness.

The CCISF, held every two years, promotes trade and investment in west China. It is a platform that allows the western region to seek investment from outside, according to Fu.

The 11th CCISF will be held between April 18-21, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, focusing on the theme of “Global sourcing and investment.”

China launched the western development program in 2000 to narrow the economic gap between the region and the country’s east.

In 2005, the region generated a total of 3.37 trillion yuan in gross domestic output, up 12 percent on 2004, significantly higher than the national average of 9.9 percent.

Thirty thousand overseas experts to be recruited

The Ministry of Personnel is bringing in some 30,000 overseas specialists next year to address China¡¯s talent shortage in certain sectors. ¡°The governmnt is to introduce 10,000 economic and technical specialists and 20,000 education, health and science specialists in 2007,¡± Zhang Baolin, Minister of Personnel, told Xinhua News Agency in an interview. Zhang said China should further explore international intellectial resources, which has provided strong support to the country¡¯s overall development. China has already recruited a total of 400,000 specialists from overseas, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan.

¡¡¡¡At the same time, China will explore establishing a mechanism to attract Chinese currently overseas to work in the country. The plan also hopes to target foreign talents.

¡¡¡¡The ministry is preparing for the fifth round of job recruitments in Beijing slated for April 21, 2007. For more information, contact.

CPC Project Manager

Company:
Famous manufactory industrial company

Responsibilities:
Management :
1.Prepare and plan project resources requirement, project budget and project schedule
2.Executive and control project implementation
3.Access project progress and quality and decide quickly corrective actions
4.Convince project team for all decision/direction taken
5.Ensure full cooperation within CPC Departments, and with all =S= Departments
6.Ensure enhancement and efficiency of actions taken for customer satisfaction

Contribution to the project development:
1.Fully understand the links between project/product performance and product departments
2.Identify and minimize project technical risks
i.Promote and enforce =S= tools and processes for all course of work

Requirements:
Compulsory: Bachelor/ Master degree (major) of University
Ideal:MBA degree (major) of University
Compulsory:>3 years of experience in projects
Ideal:>2 years as Technical leader in project or design
>2 years as Communication/Project function in companies: Industrial Product Design

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_mn117sh@dacare.com’

How to Build a Strong Human Resources Partner

What is the secret to creating and managing a successful human resources function? With so much at stake, HR must step up and demonstrate it is worthy of the human and financial capital entrusted to it.
By Derek Carissimi
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“Employees are our greatest asset.”

“We are nothing without our employees.”

“Our strength is our employees.”

e¡¯ve all heard these words, or something similar, uttered at one time or another by every CEO in the country. We¡¯ve heard these words so often they¡¯ve become clich¨¦, and almost meaningless.

How many organizations really believe these words and conduct business accordingly? How many give human resources equal status and importance with finance, marketing, medical affairs and patient services? The good news is: more and more every day. The bad news is: not enough.

As staffing shortages continue; the true cost of employee turnover finally hits home; the connection between employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction is recognized; the importance of effective employee relations understood; the number of dollars and percent of budget devoted to employee benefits acknowledged; and the exposure to employee-related lawsuits realized; organizations throughout the country are coming to appreciate that employees truly are the organization¡¯s greatest asset–and expense.

As such, human resources, which is charged with managing the “people function,” is a very important role and needs to be on the same level of the corporate food chain as finance, marketing, IT, et al.

That being said, what is the secret to creating and managing a successful human resources function? With so much at stake, HR must step up and demonstrate it is worthy of the human and financial capital entrusted to it.

Traditionally, this has not been a strength of human resource leaders. Reliance on the touchy-feely and warm-fuzzy intangibles is no longer adequate as HR must step up to the plate and become a true business and strategic partner.

How to step up to the plate? Here are the building blocks to establish an effective human resources function:

Aggressive recruitment
Keeping the organization staffed is, and will continue to be, an essential function of the effective HR department. Today¡¯s recruitment strategies, however, must be different than in the past.

Very few organizations have invested in the most fundamental and necessary component of a strong recruitment program¡ªthat being the preparation of a workforce projection document. Workforce projection consists of an in-depth analysis of the staffing needs of the organization five to 10 years into the future.

This analysis, done by job classification (i.e., staff nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, food service workers, etc.), must include the following components: (1) projected voluntary and involuntary turnover; (2) projected retirements based on the current age of employees in each job classification; (3) projected growth or decline of each of the organization¡¯s service lines; (4) anticipated population growth or decline in the community or communities the organization serves; (5) geographic shifts in the population, anticipated growth and strategies of the organization¡¯s key competitors; (6) future plans of local and state governments.

Only after the workforce projection analysis is complete is human resources in a position to aggressively recruit, and even more important, direct resources in the proper direction, effectively utilizing budget dollars.

Aggressive recruitment in today¡¯s world is definitely different than in the past.

Newspaper advertising, long the staple, is no longer effective. Spending significant amounts on newspaper recruitment is a waste of resources. Instead, more creative methods are required.

Today¡¯s recruitment requires the extensive utilization of on-line methodologies, including resume mining, applicant tracking, on-line applications, the extensive use of banners and headlines, and direct messaging to the targeted audience.

Cold-calling, direct mailings, recruitment events, employee referrals, internal career mobility programs and the use of targeted professional journals are the ways to attract candidates. It is also important to include current employees in the formulation of strategies and focus groups in the community, and elsewhere, to determine what the public thinks of you as an employer, and why current employees came to, and stay with, your organization.

It is also crucial to have a robust exit program to determine why employees leave the organization. Lastly, recruitment must not be the sole responsibility of human resources.

Hiring departments–and indeed, all managers–must have a stake in keeping a low vacancy rate. The best way to accomplish this is to include it as a performance measurement item that determines pay adjustments.

Education
Invest in your employees. Once on board, new employees must be immediately immersed into a culture of continuous learning.

Starting with the new-hire orientation program, employees must feel the organization¡¯s commitment to education and continuous learning. Such commitment translates into an investment on the part of the organization to its employees.

Meaningful tuition reimbursement programs, salary increases for certifications, salary adjustments for the attainment of degrees, tapping skilled employees to teach, career ladders, the opportunity to attend internal and external workshops, rewards for publishing articles and books and for presenting at professional conferences, mentoring programs and internal career mobility programs are all ways to demonstrate commitment to education and a culture of continuous learning. With a little creativity and innovation, these outcomes can be achieved with less expense than one might think.

Communication
Communicate early and often.

There is no substitute for communication in establishing a loyal workforce. Human resources should be the focal point for employee communication.

Organizations frequently hide behind the cloak of confidentiality as a reason for not communicating with employees. In reality, however, there is a lot we can tell employees without hitting the confidentiality barrier.

To be credible, communication needs to be open, honest, truthful, frequent and humble–and should disclose as much as possible, good news or bad. It must also be two-way and come in a variety of formats, such as newsletters, open meetings, letters to the home, opinion surveys, 360-degree evaluations, management rounding, rumor hotlines, open-door policies, broadcast voice mails, management meeting minutes and information centers.

There is no secret to effective communication. It is easier said than done, however. If an organization trusts its employees as stakeholders in the business, this process of communication will come easily. Without trust, it will prove very difficult.

It is human resources¡¯ responsibility to develop the good will and foundation for effective communication. It is then HR¡¯s responsibility to coordinate the ongoing process of solid two-way communication.

Without a good communication program, there is no way an organization can succeed. With one, there is no way it can fail.

Recognition
The fourth building block for constructing a strong human resources function is an organized and methodical employee recognition program. Many organizations believe they have a recognition program because they have a service awards luncheon once a year and an annual company picnic.

These activities are good if part of larger effort, but virtually worthless if they stand alone.

Today¡¯s recognition programs must be broad-based, long and short term in nature, individual versus event-oriented, and woven into the culture of the organization. A culture of recognition is one where employees know they are appreciated every day, without corny or awkward gestures from managers and administrators.

There are five objectives for a recognition program:

To build a long-term relationship with each employee.

To promote strong supervisor-employee relationships.

To involve and encourage employees to contribute to solutions.

To let employees know they are key to the organization¡¯s success.

To address issues before they become major problems.

Recognition programs sound like a no-brainer. It¡¯s hard to disagree with the concept, isn¡¯t it?

Nevertheless, a relatively small number of employers actually have one. It¡¯s easy to throw together a couple of events every year and say we have a recognition program.

But we don¡¯t.

A true recognition program must be systematic, methodical, in writing and measurable. It must also allow for spontaneous recognition every minute of every day, and it must allow for employee peer recognition. A recognition program that doesn¡¯t allow for spontaneity, and for employees to recognize one another, is doomed to failure.

Organizations without comprehensive recognition programs should remember the following: (a) praise and recognition are keys to employee satisfaction; (b) employers receive the lowest ratings from employees in the area of recognition; (c) high employee satisfaction equals low turnover; (d) according to employees, being ignored is the worst.

In conclusion, despite the clich¨¦, people really are the organization¡¯s greatest asset; as managers of the people function, human resources deserves recognition as a business and strategic partner, but must step up and prove its understanding and connection to the business; and the building blocks of a strong human resources function are (1) aggressive recruitment, (2) education; (3) communication and (4) recognition.

An HR function strong in these four areas will be successful and meaningfully contribute to the success of the organization.

Senior engagement key to employer branding

SHRINKING TALENT pools, increased mobility of workers, an ageing workforce and a desire on the part of younger generations to work for companies that are honest in their dealings with employees are driving an increase in employer branding.

Brett Minchington, managing director of Collective Learning Australia, said HR professionals need to engage senior executives in the benefits of developing a strong employer brand and its impact on the ability of the firm to attract, engage and retain talent.

¡°In essence, HR needs to develop a business case that is written in the language that will engage the hearts of mind of those at the top,¡± he said.

¡°To develop a culture that is supportive of the employer brand concept and is reflected in the actions of leaders at all levels of the organisation, firms should measure employee engagement and/or satisfaction and commitment on a consistent basis and link the results to financial performance.¡±

Speaking at a recent Select Australasia event in Sydney, Minchington also said employer branding should not be the sole responsibility of HR, even though research shows that, globally, the strategy is generally driven by the HR department.

¡°Ideally HR should work closely with the marketing and internal communications department to ensure that there is consistency in the development and communication of the employer brand internally and externally,¡± he said.

¡°Without the support of the MD or CEO, it is unlikely employer brand efforts will achieve the financial and operational outcomes being experienced by firms that integrate employer brand efforts into their overall business strategy.¡±

He also noted that the biggest criticism by owners and senior management of employer brand activities has been the lack of measurable outcomes for their investment.

¡°In simple terms, what doesn¡¯t get measured doesn¡¯t get managed. There are a number of human capital measures to determine the ROI of your employer brand program,¡± he said.

Happy New Job in 2007

According to the FirstGov.gov Web site, three of the most popular New Year¡¯s resolutions are losing weight, saving money and getting a better job.

So why is it that, come February 1, most of us are still chubby, broke and not doing work we love? Could there be a better way to finally get a new job this new year?

The answer is … maybe. It all depends on you. After all, the best advice in the world is useless if you don’t follow it.

But, if you¡¯re willing to change your attitude, change your actions and persist for at least 21 days — the time it takes to form a new habit, according to many self-development experts — you can find yourself in a new and better job by February 1.

Here are two paths to that new job you’ve resolved to get this new year …

1) Start Where You Are
If you’ve ever read Russell Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds,” you know that riches may be hiding right under your feet (and if you haven’t read it, go Google it now).

Most folks who resolve to find a better job do so without first taking a long, unbiased look around their own workplace. But wait — your dream job might be found at your current employer! All it takes is a little imagination to uncover it.

Example: Years ago I worked with Jane, who dreamed of becoming a graphic designer. But she was an administrative assistant. Did she despair or bemoan her lot in life? No. She got busy hanging around with graphic designers, learning the software, taking on small projects, demonstrating her skills, until one day — presto! She was promoted to graphic designer.

You can do this, too, and work your way into almost any job, in almost any industry. Why not have a meeting with your boss this week and discuss your plans? If you get an encouraging response, get busy learning the skills you’ll need. If you meet with resistance, then you can start looking for a new employer.

But you’ll never know if your dream job lies hidden just a few cubicles away unless you look around … and ask around.

2) Take Small Steps
Just as you can’t lose 24 pounds in one day, don’t resolve to find your dream job in 24 hours or even 24 days. Unrealistic deadlines produce more frustration than results.

Instead, try small, incremental steps.

After all, you didn’t gain all those extra pounds overnight, did you? No. It happened over time, almost imperceptibly. An extra helping of pancakes here, an ice cream sundae there, a few missed trips to the gym and, before you knew it, your pants no longer fit.

Research by Dr. Robert Maurer, based on the principles of kaizen (the industrial science of continuous improvement), can help you take the right small steps toward you next job.

Example: By asking yourself one small question every day, such as, ¡°If finding a new job were my top priority, what would I be thinking and doing now?¡± you can train your subconscious mind to deliver useful answers, because the brain loves questions.

According to Dr. Maurer, small incremental steps work because our brain is hard-wired to resist change. Even thinking about a major life change, such as finding a new job, can trigger the brain¡¯s fight-or-flight response, which in turn shuts down creativity and thinking — and you get stuck. Small changes, however, can bypass that automatic defense.

And by taking small steps, Dr. Maurer means small. Hate to exercise? Start with one minute of marching in front of the TV. Overeating? Throw away the first French fry. It sounds ridiculous at first, but what you¡¯re doing is rewiring your brain so that it enjoys your small successes and lets you build on them.

For your job search, try taking one small action every day, such as calling one relative or old friend for a networking conversation. At the end of 30 days, you’ll have made about 25 more call than most other job seekers, and you’ll be that much closer to your dream job.

So, start where you are and take small steps toward a new job today. Before you know it, you could be doing work you really love.

Happy New Year!