Economy Rebounding

On the heels of the news that the jobless rate is dropping, we’re seeing an increase in hiring across the board. Some companies (a few) were able to power through the downturn and continue hiring, like BazaarVoice, but many either froze hiring or laid people off. Some of the new activity can be put down to the new fiscal year and budgets, but a good chunk probably can be attributed to bandwidth issues. As companies cut to the bone, they had to make more with less. Eventually though, if you’re continuing to grow at all, you’re going to stretch your people so thin you can’t service your customer properly and your support/sales suffer. I think we’re at that point now with a lot of companies. Then there is continued growth in the market (for those who didn’t cut but are experiencing natural growth). A good indicator of this is the contract recruiting market. When companies are hiring contract recruiters it generally means they have more hiring to do than they can handle internally. Most either use outside contingency or alternatively, hire recruiters on contract to handle the excess flow. In the last ten days I’ve had people reach out about four different contract (one is contract or perm) opening. That’s good news folks! The outlook isn’t exactly rosey, but it certainly is better than this time last year.

Finding Events/Groups In Your Area

I began perusing through EventBrite back in the fall, although I haven’t done it consistently enough. I can get access to all kinds of events that previously passed under my radar. Last week I attempted to validate my palate by participating in Stubbs taste testing for their new sauce. Now normally I’m a Lockhart kind of no-sauce traditionalist when it comes to the Q, but I figured what the hell. You got four sets of samples for their different lines. You were asked to discern which of the samples was different, and yes I was singing "one of these things is not like the other" in my head during the tasting. I found it odd that the people running the test were eating pizza and came close to asking if they needed help with that too. But for 30 minutes I got $50 and some neat insight into the data set Stubbs uses to adjust their recipes. I think me and the better half will use it for one of the gospel brunches!

But EB isn’t limited – I also signed up for the Social Media Breakfast Austin (which I missed unfortunately for an unannounced customer call – customers trump all as you know), but I’m making the next one! TechRanch Austin is having one of their campfires on Friday. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in your locale, so check it out: www.EventBrite.com.

I’ve also seen meetup recommended, although I’ve just started to explore it. MeetUp.com.

Employee Dissatisfaction Trending

Some pretty startling numbers have been coming out about employee satisfaction. Rob Jannone writes in his blog post The Mass Exodus of Talent that:

Halfway through the 1st month of 2010 and a theme emerging in the blogosphere and social media as it relates to Human Capital Management, is that the mass exodus of talent is imminent. Various studies cite from 50 to 85% of employed workers are unhappy in their current positions and/or their employers. Their reasons vary from the tried and true “overworked/underpaid” to lack of recognition and positive reinforcement.

Setting aside my disagreement with the rhetoric of “Human Capital,” these are some pretty stark numbers. Jannone points out that some of this may be pent up frustration from the downturn, where either respondents were in danger of being let go, or otherwise unable to move because of the overall economic situation. Even if true, he’s right that the emphasis on the company end needs to be on retention. To that I’d add that it would behoove managers to try and ascertain which relationships can be repaired and which can’t. Just as you have a pipeline forecast or product roadmap, you need to be aware of your employees disposition. Like poker, this is a game of incomplete information, but you can’t plan for headcount with a attrition number set by the Board or someone outside your group.

On the other hand, companies expanding should be in a great position to snap up some of this talent.