Talent Unconference

Videos: Sustainable Solutions

Morning Session...

Afternoon Session...

Obtaining Upper Management Buy-in for Sourcing

Business Problem

The Business Problem session group boiled down our problem statement into three key areas to approach. Here were our group’s conclusions:

1) How To Get Funding

• Figure out what tools you want and how much they cost
• Define your strategy and create a plan, then price the whole plan (tools, staff, services, vendors, and so on)
• Take that price and compare it to what it would cost to pay externally for the same services, or for the same number of hires
• Find a competitor or other company that’s implemented a similar plan
• Prove it works:

• Deliver some initial results under a zero budget
• Measure those results and share them with management to prove cost benefits if you were able to obtain full budget
• Figure out the cost of open positions, or “cost-not-to-hire” which can be estimated by adding up the revenue lost each day those positions go unfilled

• Know what the business wants. Identify what motivates your business leadership. They could be motivated by a number of reasons so paint your picture according to what is most important to them. For example:

• Is it reduction of cost?
• It is reduction of time to fill?
• Is it pain of positions going unfilled?
• Is it to increase the quality of hire?
• Is it secrecy or confidentiality?
• Are there any other critical projects like for example a new product line or something that would cause your company to seek an entirely new kind of talent the organization has never worked with before?

The group agreed that the most powerful metric to present to an organization’s leadership would be the cost not to hire for a position. It was suggested that to figure out this cost one would take the productive output of an average day in this role, and extrapolate that out to a full year’s worth of productive days (approximately 260 working days per year). Other metrics the group concluded have strong value when proving your case to management include:

• Reduction in cost per hire
• Improved 6 month performance evaluation
• Increased time to perform (ramp-up time)
• Reduction in cost per source (job boards, purchased research, etc.)
• Increase in quality of hire

The above is by no means a conclusive list, and we certainly did not have enough time to go into detail on how to obtain or calculate those metrics, but I hope this sparks some conversation on the blog about these metrics. I would particularly be interested to hear from some of the people who have championed the above inside of their organizations.

To follow through on the goal of the session the group moved on to establish a few principles that will contribute towards helping a sourcing team remain a going concern within the organization. The conclusion was that the most important aspect to maintaining sustainability is to “tell someone.” Spreading of the gospel leads to executive sponsorship, which in turn aids in survival.

2) Ensuring Sourcing Sustainability 

• Identify a couple of business champions who will help you spread the work on the good work you and your sourcing team do. These should be your champions who will defend your case in the event of a leadership change, or other major environmental changes.
• Cultivate relationships with hiring managers. They can be your number one advocates. If your leadership changes make sure your hiring managers remember you and go to bat for you, or at least ask the new leadership to keep the sourcing team going. Happy hiring managers may even volunteer to help fund some of the things you do.

To conclude our afternoon session the group wrote down a few guidelines on what makes a good sourcer, and some suggestions on where to find them. Like with the other summaries, this is by no means a complete list. My hope is that this will spark some conversation around defining the sourcer’s role.

3) What makes a good sourcer? 

• There are two kinds of sourcers: - Phone and Internet
• Sometimes you can find a rare individual who has mastered both research techniques, but often you will need to have one of each.
• Common traits for both types of sourcers:
  • Curiosity, insatiable appetite for information
  • Tenacity, not taking no for an answer, not giving up
  • Creativity, finding solutions around problems
  • Process driven, can replicate results
  • Flexibility, can adapt easily

• Where do you find good sourcers?

o       Phone sourcers:

o       Customer service

o       Collections

o       Brokers

o       Telemarketing

o       Executive search firms

o       Researchers:

o       Librarians

o       Skip tracers

o       Private investigator researchers

o       Executive search firms

o       Graduates who spent lots of time researching

That Thing you Do - first impressions from a track leader

Jeff asked us all to comment on the blog about our thoughts regarding the unconference. In fact, he specifically asked us to write up at least one critical comment. This kind of introspective is what drives success. His open requested on behalf of everyone who helped put the Unconference together exhibits the spirit of why we came together.

Unconferences have no rules and this appealed to my anarchistic tendencies. The ensuing chaos may have been uncomfortable for some who prefer structure and rules. To be fair the folks at EA did an incredible job organizing that which could be organized, droving groups and keeping us on track. Speaking of tracks, I think the size of the groups was great. In my experience facilitating groups, I am of the opinion that teams under 10 are best.

First Impressions

• I had no expectations so when I was greeted with a gift and a pre-printed name badge, I was already impressed.
• The locaiton was amazing - but then I'm a total geek and video game fan so they had me at hello :)
• It took me a minute to fill out my "dossier" and quite a bit longer to tape it to the wall and draw some lines. I got there early so I had plenty fo time, but I bet the those who arrived "on time" barely had time. Perhaps there's a digital solution?
• Nice spread. Fruit, bagles, coffee. I wanted for nothing. Well, except to break away and go play all the free video games :)
• WAY more people thank I though would show up, showed up. Cool.
• Some people who promised to be there, weren't. Dissapointing.
• Quite a few consultants and vendors, not enough production recruiters. 

Lasting Impressions

• We should do this again. And again. We should do it until everyone notices, and then we should keep doing it some more. This kind of event can make a difference in ways no single voice can.
• Jeff, Krisit, Cindy, the whole EA team is awesome. 
• There are far more people with passion for our industry than I thought possible.
• I started out being a big fan of many people who came through the doors, but my respect for them grew because I saw a side of them I had not ever seen "out in public."  As a result I'm going to go out of my way to get to know these leaders "off stage" so we can discuss their many incubation ideas. 
• I met some legendary people I had never had the honor to meet. I won't be surprised if a few new ventures or even entire companies result from these meetings.
• It was incredibly difficult to bite my tounge and not stand up to present. Kristi and I decided that as facilitators we would encourage track participants to present and not monopolize the stage. Other track leaders did this as well and I think the result was very positive.
• There are too many big issues affecting our industry, and each should probably have their very on full day unconference.
• We asked more questions than we answered so I hope that others will pick up where we left off and start formulating some answers we can propose at the next Unconference.

I caught a bad cold at the uncoference, and I got bronchitis on top of that.  Apparently I am not alone. I think a few superconnectors showed up with superbugs the night before and when we all went out to dinner we passed the bugs around to each other. I think mine came from Argentina though, but I didn't get sick until the day of the conference, so I can't be sure.

In any case, I want to be very clear-headed when I put together my notes from the Sustainable Sourcing track so its going to take me a few days but I promise they will be up this week. I took picture of all the flipboard pages. If any track participants have notes typed up please send them over, or put them up on the blog. I'll also post a couple of photos. If you can't wait, and must see the pictures I took, check out: http://picasaweb.google.com/shally/Taluncon.

Sustainable Sourcing: Opening Pandora's Box

Introduction

Sustainable Sourcing is a topic that Kristi and I are both very passionate about and through our brainstorming for this track, we covered off many topics ranging from research & competitive intelligence, technology, tools, active vs. passive candidates, proactive vs. reactive sourcing, pipeline development, talent forecasting, influencing and partnering with stakeholders in your business and even the human capital market in general. Selecting any one of these topics would evoke a rich exchange of ideas, however they are all integral factors to a complex and ever evolving business and industry challenge. Therefore, we hope you join us to discuss these many topics and how the future of Sustainable Sourcing will be changed through evolving technology, tools, and strategy.

Opportunity

We think that in the fu ture of Sustainable Sourcing, Pandora ’s Box will open, where a cutting edge sourcing technology solution will one day intuitively reveal, source and capture all Leads, Competitive Intelligence and the Human Capital Market, ultimately automating and creating sustainable talent pipelines.

We think that the great talent acquisition technology minds of today should combine forces to create and unleash this solution.

Business Problem

We think that getting your business partners to understand, adopt and invest in sourcing strategies and models can only happen through shifting the internal mind-set in the organization from reactive to proactive sourcing.  We will lead the group in a discussion with the objective to find solutions on how to get long term organizational buy-in for proactive sourcing and talent pipelining. During the creation of a solution we will lead discussions around three pivots critical in supporting sustainable sourcing:

• Creating solutions to the inherent challenges of identifying, testing, selecting, hiring and retaining top sourcing talent which can make or break a sustainable sourcing effort.
• Ascertain methods to manage up and exercise influence without authority to establish a sound, long term proactive sourcing effort that takes into account talent forecasting, training, and interdepartmental business partnerships.
• Establish contingency strategies to implement during changes in leadership and similarly disruptive events in order to ensure that sourcing remains a going concern.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know (Take 1)

Everything you always wanted to know about the Talent Unconference, and more! (Note: I will be updating this frequently, so if you are interested in attending, leading a track or just have a question please write me as soon as possible at jjhunter at ea dot com.)

It’s really happening and we hope that you can make it.

If you are not familiar with the Talent Unconference, what it is all about and what it takes to get in, read more here and here.

Date & Time

The Talent Unconference will take place on Thursday,  January 25, 2007. It will start at 9:00 a.m. and end around 6 p.m. PST.

Location

209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City, CA / Electronic Arts Worldwide Headquarters (Google Map here ... Detailed instructions will be sent to those who sign-up)

Unconference Format / Activities

• There are 6 tracks (see below).
• Each track has two sessions (one in the morning and one in the afternoon).
• You will sign-up for a session ahead of time, but you can also change your mind once you get here (but only before the session starts, not during).
• Each track has two leaders (except the “Big Pipe” session, which at this time has only one). The leaders are responsible for:

1. Creating the framing opportunity (see below)
2. Creating the framing problem (again, see below)
3. Either facilitating the opportunity / problem session or getting someone from the team to do it (will be decided in advance)
4. Either scribing or having someone else do it (can be decided at the start of each session)
5. Making sure that they invite individuals who would add something substantial to the session and whose “Learning and Teaching” statement aligns with the tracks opportunity / problem frame.

• After each session, the track leaders will report out the results of the session to all the conference attendees, or ask someone from the session team to do it for them. Their / your call.
• Each track is focused on “Bleeding-edge Innovations in Talent” but the approach to how the tracks focus on this will be different in the morning session than the afternoon session:

Morning Session – “Future Opportunity” – Your track leaders will have a basic business proposition for you, i.e. “We think that in the future of Talent Planning & Strategy this opportunity is going to exist, and we want to go start a business to capitalize on that opportunity.” ** The opportunity becomes the framework through which the participants in the track will start a conversation about the future of talent in that track focus.

Afternoon Session – “Problem Focus” – Your track leaders will have a basic business problem in the area of talent that they want to discuss i.e. “We think that getting people to adopt bleeding-edge technology without a central sourcing organization can only happen through changing organizational structure.”  ** The problem becomes the framework through which the participants in the track will start a conversation about innovative approaches to the realities of talent today.

** Both of these examples are made up. I am sure that the track leaders will come up with something far more interesting. And because this is an Unconference, where everyone teaches and everyone learns, the track leaders may decide to do something completely different than what I have planned here, or the session group may come together and just shoot the breeze about a topic du jour. It's all possible, but every session group has to report to the group at large.

• All report out sessions will be video-taped, and the video will be put up on YouTube as well as the Taluncon blog site. Peter Clayton will also be attending and interviewing participants to put on his Total Picture.com blog, which will have complimentary links from the Taluncon website.
• Each participant in the Taluncon will be made a guest author on the Taluncon website and will be able to post their questions, thoughts, ideas and miscellany about the Taluncon before, during and after the conference. The blog will become the central medium of exchange for the Unconference, and will be publicly accessible to all who are interested. (Please write me if you don't get your guest writer privledges by January 8).

Tracks / Leaders

1. Talent Planning & Strategy (lead by Susan Burns and Dave Lefkow)
2. Process Excellence (lead by Scott Dow and Nancy Gray-Starkebaum)
3. Future Tech (lead by Sean Rehder and Colin Kingsbury)
4. Meaningful Connections - Community and communications (lead by Jason Davis and David Manaster)
5. Sustainable Sourcing (lead by Shally Steckerl and Kristi Cavanaugh)
6. The Big Pipe – Getting business to fundamentally rethink their participation in the K-12 education system (lead by Dennis Hunter)

Agenda

• Will be distributed at the start of the conference.

Logistics

• PLEASE NOTE: You must book and pay for your own travel and provide your own transportation to and from the Talent Unconference.
• EA will provide a complimentary continental breakfast and a full lunch. Dinner will not be covered, although there are some conversations about bringing in pizza and beer before the poker tourney (check out Jason Davis and Recruiting.com  for more info as it becomes available).
• You will have to check in at the EA main desk on the day of the event, so you have to be registered to attend. I will stop accepting emails on January 23.
• HOTELS - The following hotels have specially negotiated rates. Please mention EA when you get your reservation in order to get the special rate (please use EA address above to calculate travel distance from the hotel):

Sofitel San Francisco Bay - $179 a night (nicest of the hotels listed and walking distance to unconference)

Crown Plaza Hotel - $129 a night

TownePlace Suites  - $111 a night

Fairfield Inn & Suites San Carlos - $95 a night

Recruiting.com Poker Tournament

The Poker Tourney is on and turning out to be big. Check out Recruiting.com for updated information. It will start 1 hour after the unconference is completed and end sometime early that morning.