RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Everyone has their favourite Olympic event. For many it’s the 100m sprint as the fastest men on earth hurtle down that tiny corridor to victory and fame. But for me, amidst all of the individual events that characterise the Olympics, the event I look forward to the most is the 4 X 100m relay. These are often the final events in the track schedule – the pinnacle of the stadium show. I might be revealing too much about myself if I say that the reason I like the relays so much is because often world-class athletes are made to look like school children: fumbling the batons, running past each other and just generally falling apart. It’s like watching a motor race just to see the accidents. And accidents happen regularly in relays.
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The world we live and work in has become increasingly complex in the past two decades. Rapid advances in technology, together with globalisation have changed the way the business world works. The result is that in most multinationals we now have very complex matrix reporting structures, a proliferation of geographically dispersed teams, managers who would not be able to complete the work of absent team members, and more stress and pressure than ever before.
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So it’s official – we’re back in recession. We shouldn’t be too surprised – massive public spending cuts during a period of private sector weakness was unlikely to end well. But what is surprising is the solution being offered by some ‘business leaders’. In a recent report, a prominent Venture Capitalist claims that growth is held back by employee rights, like protection from unfair dismissal. He argues that if we removed workers’ rights, and allowed employers to hire and fire at will, then the economy would suddenly flourish.
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On the back burner for the last few years whilst many organisations have undergone cost cutting exercises, the high potential (HiPo) programme is making a come back as business leaders have recognised that effective talent management and development is the key to business growth and sustainable competitive advantage.
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We have all heard the saying before – you never get a second chance to make a first impression – but that saying couldn’t ring truer than when you are bringing a new employee onboard as part of your company.
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“He just felt right”… it’s the line any assessment professional dreads hearing from a line manager. The brutal truth is that almost everyone over-estimates their own ability to make good hires. As humans, we often have a habit of trusting intuition over reason, thinking that we’re the best judge of who will make a good hire for often emotive reasons.
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In the past two days we have seen the leaders of News International send a clear message to the business: There’s you and there’s us.
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This week we have had a very stark reminder that you cannot just allow anyone to represent your brand in the external market, as the News of The World is abandoned one after the other, by most (if not all) of its key advertising customers.
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There is nowhere that HR transformation is more prevalent than EMEA right now and HR are still grappling with an extremely complex region where making Talent and resourcing programmes work both culturally and commercially is a big challenge. The blue print that everyone seemed to want to search for 3-4 years ago simply doesn’t exist, but what we are seeing in some of the best cases are dynamic talent programmes that bring common processes and still account for local, diverse needs – all aligned directly to the business strategy. So is this complexity why European transformation programmes are taking so long? Yes and no.
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Remember when you used to receive CVs with candidates listing 20 year’s service at one company?  When loyalty to an employer was a key measure of a candidate’s values?  On one occasion (many years ago) I remember receiving a CV from a candidate who had spent 20 years at ICL and in fact presented his CV on ICL headed paper!  The problem was that this was now the late 90s and it had since become the norm to spend 18 months to three years with an employer before looking for the next move. Certainly any more than five years with one employer looked lazy!
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