Sourcers, especially the hard-core practitioners of this specialty niche, are in demand again suggesting that ‘hard to fill’ openings are getting even harder to fill. The bi-annual ERE meeting known as Sourcecon was held in Atlanta at the downtown Aquarium February 8-10. The niche conference offered plenty of action for everyone interested in tracking, hunting and engaging candidates.
With over 200 attendees it was the largest gathering of its kind to date and, because of its specialized focus, it afforded me with a glimpse of how the best technical minds in our profession are employing the newest staffing tools emerging from every direction.
The presentations ranged from how to dig deeper into social media (how could one not have social media and mobile sessions) to unpublished and private hacks shared by the elite after hours in a local bar- Sourcecon After Dark. (Normally I go to a bar after dinner to have a nightcap so this was definitely a different experience watching geeks gather around laptops and challenge each other to find purple squirrels.)
It wasn’t all technical tactics as several presentations including an excellent talk by Aida La Chaux, from Yahoo, a CareerXroads Colloquium member offered insights into developing, leading and supporting sourcing teams while staying aligned to the business…particularly through times of adversity.
Additionally, three practitioner leaders, Anne Dewys, Chris Havrilla and Theresa Hightower on Elaine Orler’s technology panel also offered critical business insights about how the tools and technologies employed by Sourcers, especially ATSs need to change in the future. And Adam Lawrence’s excellent keynote on sourcing’s role in building trust globally touched a Candidate Experience nerve that needs to be expanded in several directions.
Even technology as old as the office phone became the focus for awhile as Conni LaDouceur enthralled the audience by playing tapes of successful calls into firms she had targeted in order to learn everything she could about the firm’s people- titles, responsibilities, reporting relationships and teams (whose online presence by the way was limited or non-existent.) Sourcing skills clearly aren’t limited to one medium.
Glen Cathey was outstanding as the Master of Ceremonies. He shared his journey and lessons learned as a recruiter, sourcer and leader in the field. A former Sourcecon MC and now with Hodes, Jim Stroud, gave one of the most entertaining talks laced with apps and ideas to start the conference off.
Ending the conference was a session by Eric Jaquith that had the audience begging for more as he shared some of his ‘tricks of the trade’ (that will likely cause a few vendors to shudder). It was also a highlight for me because he first put the focus of his presentation into the context of a winning hand of poker. He bridged the gap from technique to goal by linking the tactical ‘features’ of the tactic to the ‘benefits’ leading to a successful placement strategy. I believe this will be a classic and would love to see his detailed description of a ‘high hand’ put into a whitepaper. It deserves some serious attention.
Kudos to Amybeth Hale for putting this program together and to ERE for streaming and archiving this content so it is all available here.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Effective Recruiting Measures: Tackling Pipelines
A current animated conversation on Jeremy Shapiro's Measuring Human Capital group on Linkedin sparked some thoughts about what is worth measuring short and long-term in recruiting.
I've always been a fan of measuring a short-term hiring process on time, cost and quality but then aligning accountability to the business on only two of the three as a practical measure.
For me, that still leaves a critical need to measure the long-term impact of recruiting i.e 6 months and beyond.
One obvious example of this is college recruiting, assuming the firm has interns and converts some of them to F/T. Is an effective and productive college recruiting program that does not sustain its goal of feeding an internal pipe of leaders 5 and 10 years away worth the investment?
Another aspect however is a little trickier
Imagine a manufacturing supply chain in which you invest all your measures of success- time, cost and quality around the 'finished' product but, since the cost of material has been going down dramatically, you haven't paid attention to how the supply is brought to the 'plant' and how the workers treat the material that isn't 'finished'.
Eventually you look more closely and you discover that :
-the 'cost' of finding new sources is escalating exponentially while you've been taking advantage of the lowered cost of mining the existing but dwindling supplies.
-the material not included in finished products (which are wonderful) isn't 're-worked' but instead is simply dumped out back and is fast becoming a toxic problem.
- In addition there are stores of similar product already in the plant that could be re-purposed with a little rework but no one is measuring the advantage of internal versus external sourcing or what the best balance might be (and, anyway, policy requires we NOT consider internal sourcing until the existing configured product has been used for at least two years in its current state..or it just no longer functions...or it disappears with 'no regret'.)
-The emphasis on cost AND speed AND quality especially in the last 3-4 years has created dissonance among the workers who have managed to master any two but not three dimensions and the pile of (unmeasured) broken product out back that never reaches a quality audit has been getting bigger and bigger.
The typical 'large' firm (if there were such a thing) acquires from numerous sources about 125,000 applications per year which yields around 20,000 finalists and 5,000 hires (I'm in the midst of examining these numbers from 100 companies right now and this is very conservative). Almost nothing is done in any firm with 80% of these applications despite protestations to the contrary by advocates of talent communities etc.etc.
Lots of assumptions however:
- One assumption is that 50% or more of the applications are totally inadequate for any position. How did they get into the system in the first place?
- Few Finalists (qualified, considered, screened and interviewed but not selected) for one job are, in fact, almost never hired for any other position (but then I can't find anyone who has ever measured this).
- Fewer than 5% of firms have ever audited their recruiting process...from the beginning.
- Fewer than 1 in 4 recruiters has EVER applied to a job in their own firm (let alone the ones they are handling).
- Only 40% of staffing leaders have EVER (i.e. once in their lifetime) sat in on one of their team members to audit the crucial interview we assume is a disciplined behavioral based event. And no one dares to audit the hiring managers skill in the selection interviews they conduct. They may be trained but no one asks them to prove they use the training. Good thing we don't apply recruiting protocols to airplane pilots.
Our Cost, Time and Quality measures can be good...for now but the unmeasured broken pipeline will be the death of firms in the future.
What might be the effect on a retail firm's sales to a poorly managed pipeline of candidates that produces 1000 high quality hires in record time and under budget?
For the sake of this hypothetical argument, assume 80% of those 10,000 candidates (who each spent 45 minutes applying) are also customers. What if 20% of the unqualified applicants who never hear back and aren't even thanked for their effort (because the firm forgot to configure the automated ATS response letter and wasn't even sending out its normally rude acknowledgment) stop buying the firm's product? What if 50% of the 5000 finalists who didn't get a job (but who couldn't reach either the hiring manager or the recruiter because they refused to take their calls) not only stopped buying product but each told ALL their friends (120 on average) about their experience and their resolution?
So my contention is that in the 21st century we will need standards for measuring a quality hiring process at every stage not just time, cost and quality against an arbitrary start and stopping point.
I've always been a fan of measuring a short-term hiring process on time, cost and quality but then aligning accountability to the business on only two of the three as a practical measure.
For me, that still leaves a critical need to measure the long-term impact of recruiting i.e 6 months and beyond.
One obvious example of this is college recruiting, assuming the firm has interns and converts some of them to F/T. Is an effective and productive college recruiting program that does not sustain its goal of feeding an internal pipe of leaders 5 and 10 years away worth the investment?
Another aspect however is a little trickier
Imagine a manufacturing supply chain in which you invest all your measures of success- time, cost and quality around the 'finished' product but, since the cost of material has been going down dramatically, you haven't paid attention to how the supply is brought to the 'plant' and how the workers treat the material that isn't 'finished'.
Eventually you look more closely and you discover that :
-the 'cost' of finding new sources is escalating exponentially while you've been taking advantage of the lowered cost of mining the existing but dwindling supplies.
-the material not included in finished products (which are wonderful) isn't 're-worked' but instead is simply dumped out back and is fast becoming a toxic problem.
- In addition there are stores of similar product already in the plant that could be re-purposed with a little rework but no one is measuring the advantage of internal versus external sourcing or what the best balance might be (and, anyway, policy requires we NOT consider internal sourcing until the existing configured product has been used for at least two years in its current state..or it just no longer functions...or it disappears with 'no regret'.)
-The emphasis on cost AND speed AND quality especially in the last 3-4 years has created dissonance among the workers who have managed to master any two but not three dimensions and the pile of (unmeasured) broken product out back that never reaches a quality audit has been getting bigger and bigger.
The typical 'large' firm (if there were such a thing) acquires from numerous sources about 125,000 applications per year which yields around 20,000 finalists and 5,000 hires (I'm in the midst of examining these numbers from 100 companies right now and this is very conservative). Almost nothing is done in any firm with 80% of these applications despite protestations to the contrary by advocates of talent communities etc.etc.
Lots of assumptions however:
- One assumption is that 50% or more of the applications are totally inadequate for any position. How did they get into the system in the first place?
- Few Finalists (qualified, considered, screened and interviewed but not selected) for one job are, in fact, almost never hired for any other position (but then I can't find anyone who has ever measured this).
- Fewer than 5% of firms have ever audited their recruiting process...from the beginning.
- Fewer than 1 in 4 recruiters has EVER applied to a job in their own firm (let alone the ones they are handling).
- Only 40% of staffing leaders have EVER (i.e. once in their lifetime) sat in on one of their team members to audit the crucial interview we assume is a disciplined behavioral based event. And no one dares to audit the hiring managers skill in the selection interviews they conduct. They may be trained but no one asks them to prove they use the training. Good thing we don't apply recruiting protocols to airplane pilots.
Our Cost, Time and Quality measures can be good...for now but the unmeasured broken pipeline will be the death of firms in the future.
What might be the effect on a retail firm's sales to a poorly managed pipeline of candidates that produces 1000 high quality hires in record time and under budget?
For the sake of this hypothetical argument, assume 80% of those 10,000 candidates (who each spent 45 minutes applying) are also customers. What if 20% of the unqualified applicants who never hear back and aren't even thanked for their effort (because the firm forgot to configure the automated ATS response letter and wasn't even sending out its normally rude acknowledgment) stop buying the firm's product? What if 50% of the 5000 finalists who didn't get a job (but who couldn't reach either the hiring manager or the recruiter because they refused to take their calls) not only stopped buying product but each told ALL their friends (120 on average) about their experience and their resolution?
So my contention is that in the 21st century we will need standards for measuring a quality hiring process at every stage not just time, cost and quality against an arbitrary start and stopping point.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Anachronism: Out of Place. Out of Time. Out of Our Mind.
According to Wiki an Anachronism is an inconsistency in a chronological arrangement such as ‘time’. It’s the intentional use of older, often obsolete cultural artifacts which a general public might consider an error.
Rotary Dial Telephones would probably qualify as an anachronism. In 2006, best estimates had the number of these outmoded devices at just under1% of US households. And it’s a good bet that quite a few of the 2 million people still leasing phone company supplied telephones 5 years ago were using the rotary dial- an essentially unchanged technology since it was first distributed in 1919.
My sense of disappointment at these numbers isn’t so much directed at the silliness of the people who continue to pay monthly for a piece of hardware that has long since been paid for and hasn’t been manufactured in decades. No, my incredulity is the phone companies who willingly take old people’s money (young people have never seen the device). You would think they would be better than that.
Another anachronism showed up in my local paper, the Home News Tribune this week (Tuesday, January 10). An article, Legal Ad Mandate Retained, written by a real local reporter, Bob Jordan, one of the few remaining, reported that a bill that would “end requirements for governments to advertise budgets, bids for services and other public records in [print in] newspapers” died.
Government legal print ads running in NJ’s local papers cost taxpayers at least $20 million (and by some estimates more like $70 million) annually. Instead of self-publishing the notices on their own government websites (or having a single smaller print ad ‘point’ to the relevant internet pages), legislators bowed to the obvious lobbies like the NJ Press Association and killed the savings.
One legislator noted this was “good news for an [anachronistic] industry that is hurting” and, added we should “urge all New Jersey residents to read newspapers to keep up on what is going on.”
I certainly don’t blame the newspapers for protecting its last source of income no matter how obsolete its’ reasoning (their failure was the years spent protecting print income when their mission was informing others. Now the information they present is old by comparison and in a form unusable to the majority of consumers). I am incredulous however that Governor Christy hasn’t yet leaped on those who killed the bill since it is my tax they are spending and he has been pretty consistent at cutting it all out…up until now.
Then there is Recruiting. Imagine what would happen if customers, in this day and age, were ignored when they came in the store (unless of course they fit the ideal customer profile but, since they are never told what exactly that was they never knew if they fit it). What if they we’re allowed to wander and check out the merchandise- but none it came with a price, any explanations of the garment’s history or a description of the designer. What if the customer was 100 times more likely to discover that the item they wanted was out of stock or that someone else had been given it and couldn't learn how they could move up in the queue or be told they will never be allowed to purchase.
But at least each time the customer asked if they could ‘buy’ they were thanked for their interest in ‘buying.” Customers were also always invited to come back but, why bother- to join a community of non-buying customers just like themselves?
The only thing these customers can do better than their forebears 100 years ago is to tell a whole lot of people about their experience.
I really can’t get upset at the candidates who, like lemmings, continue to exhibit a failed set of behaviors over and over. I’m less impressed with a profession that maintains its’ just a business decision to ignore candidate needs. It is. It’s a short term business decision. You would think we were better than that.
Rotary Dial Telephones would probably qualify as an anachronism. In 2006, best estimates had the number of these outmoded devices at just under1% of US households. And it’s a good bet that quite a few of the 2 million people still leasing phone company supplied telephones 5 years ago were using the rotary dial- an essentially unchanged technology since it was first distributed in 1919.
My sense of disappointment at these numbers isn’t so much directed at the silliness of the people who continue to pay monthly for a piece of hardware that has long since been paid for and hasn’t been manufactured in decades. No, my incredulity is the phone companies who willingly take old people’s money (young people have never seen the device). You would think they would be better than that.
Another anachronism showed up in my local paper, the Home News Tribune this week (Tuesday, January 10). An article, Legal Ad Mandate Retained, written by a real local reporter, Bob Jordan, one of the few remaining, reported that a bill that would “end requirements for governments to advertise budgets, bids for services and other public records in [print in] newspapers” died.
Government legal print ads running in NJ’s local papers cost taxpayers at least $20 million (and by some estimates more like $70 million) annually. Instead of self-publishing the notices on their own government websites (or having a single smaller print ad ‘point’ to the relevant internet pages), legislators bowed to the obvious lobbies like the NJ Press Association and killed the savings.
One legislator noted this was “good news for an [anachronistic] industry that is hurting” and, added we should “urge all New Jersey residents to read newspapers to keep up on what is going on.”
I certainly don’t blame the newspapers for protecting its last source of income no matter how obsolete its’ reasoning (their failure was the years spent protecting print income when their mission was informing others. Now the information they present is old by comparison and in a form unusable to the majority of consumers). I am incredulous however that Governor Christy hasn’t yet leaped on those who killed the bill since it is my tax they are spending and he has been pretty consistent at cutting it all out…up until now.
Then there is Recruiting. Imagine what would happen if customers, in this day and age, were ignored when they came in the store (unless of course they fit the ideal customer profile but, since they are never told what exactly that was they never knew if they fit it). What if they we’re allowed to wander and check out the merchandise- but none it came with a price, any explanations of the garment’s history or a description of the designer. What if the customer was 100 times more likely to discover that the item they wanted was out of stock or that someone else had been given it and couldn't learn how they could move up in the queue or be told they will never be allowed to purchase.
But at least each time the customer asked if they could ‘buy’ they were thanked for their interest in ‘buying.” Customers were also always invited to come back but, why bother- to join a community of non-buying customers just like themselves?
The only thing these customers can do better than their forebears 100 years ago is to tell a whole lot of people about their experience.
I really can’t get upset at the candidates who, like lemmings, continue to exhibit a failed set of behaviors over and over. I’m less impressed with a profession that maintains its’ just a business decision to ignore candidate needs. It is. It’s a short term business decision. You would think we were better than that.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Referrals in College Admissions Emphasize Selection versus Sourcing
The University equivalent of a recruiter is the college admissions officer who, like their corporate counterpart, has always had a secret weapon… referrals.
There are two differences however:
- Corporations generally rely on Employee referrals while Universities get their help from Alumni.
- Employees help ‘find’ the candidate while Alumni are most often pressed into service to help ‘select’ the candidates in the field.
And it’s this second difference that may be changing according to a Wall Street Journal article last week (1/5/12) by Melissa Korn, B-Schools Send Rejections to Unlikely Group: Alumni.
Apparently at B-Schools like Wharton with its 88,000 avid alumni, concerns have been growing that the alumni may either lack some of the skills and motivation to properly assess the candidates or, may have another agenda for helping the candidate get in without having the necessary qualifications.
Claiming better ‘consistency’ as its goal, Wharton, which conducts as many as 3,500 interviews to admit about 1000 “is sending its six admissions officers to 12 ‘hub’ cities, including San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Singapore to interview applicants…” rather than rely on Alumni in those locations.
Reading between the lines it seems the ‘interviews’ conducted by alumni in other lands may not effectively test the candidate’s ‘language’ skills and, while it may be hard to believe, some candidates have paid ‘stand-ins” to complete the applications for elite schools…even taking their interviews on Skype for them. Really.
Bringing the conversation back to the contribution of referrals in a public or private firm, this article made me realize that we almost never see involvement by the referrer in the screening of the candidate.
What if an employee could simply pass on a ‘referral’ as they normally do to the pool of applicants that recruiters and hiring managers dip into to create a slate, and additionally, opt-in to guarantee the candidate a spot on the slate by screening them (after the employee first completes training and practices using a solid script for the appropriate job-family)?
Worst case the employee sends in a real dud, the recruiter does an ‘exploratory’ interview and the employee is not allowed to opt-in to screen candidates for future positions (and their future referrals are less likely to be considered).
Best case the employee saves the recruiter time in sourcing and screening, hits the bulls-eye and a star is born. The employee’s future referrals whether or not the employee opts in to do the screening have higher visibility.
With technology managing the communication, training, scripts, documentation etc, this seems like an intriguing possibility.
There are two differences however:
- Corporations generally rely on Employee referrals while Universities get their help from Alumni.
- Employees help ‘find’ the candidate while Alumni are most often pressed into service to help ‘select’ the candidates in the field.
And it’s this second difference that may be changing according to a Wall Street Journal article last week (1/5/12) by Melissa Korn, B-Schools Send Rejections to Unlikely Group: Alumni.
Apparently at B-Schools like Wharton with its 88,000 avid alumni, concerns have been growing that the alumni may either lack some of the skills and motivation to properly assess the candidates or, may have another agenda for helping the candidate get in without having the necessary qualifications.
Claiming better ‘consistency’ as its goal, Wharton, which conducts as many as 3,500 interviews to admit about 1000 “is sending its six admissions officers to 12 ‘hub’ cities, including San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Singapore to interview applicants…” rather than rely on Alumni in those locations.
Reading between the lines it seems the ‘interviews’ conducted by alumni in other lands may not effectively test the candidate’s ‘language’ skills and, while it may be hard to believe, some candidates have paid ‘stand-ins” to complete the applications for elite schools…even taking their interviews on Skype for them. Really.
Bringing the conversation back to the contribution of referrals in a public or private firm, this article made me realize that we almost never see involvement by the referrer in the screening of the candidate.
What if an employee could simply pass on a ‘referral’ as they normally do to the pool of applicants that recruiters and hiring managers dip into to create a slate, and additionally, opt-in to guarantee the candidate a spot on the slate by screening them (after the employee first completes training and practices using a solid script for the appropriate job-family)?
Worst case the employee sends in a real dud, the recruiter does an ‘exploratory’ interview and the employee is not allowed to opt-in to screen candidates for future positions (and their future referrals are less likely to be considered).
Best case the employee saves the recruiter time in sourcing and screening, hits the bulls-eye and a star is born. The employee’s future referrals whether or not the employee opts in to do the screening have higher visibility.
With technology managing the communication, training, scripts, documentation etc, this seems like an intriguing possibility.
Friday, December 30, 2011
One Prediction and One Prediction Only for 2012
Educational Technologies (broadband video, collaboration tools, e-learning development tools, marketing and distribution tools, apps, etc., etc.) passed a tipping point in 2011 and will change ‘training’ and ‘learning’ business models forever.
Next year is the beginning of the end for current approaches to how we attend conferences; collaborate at seminars; develop ourselves and our colleagues; train our subordinates; support local-tax-based school systems; matriculate at college and, much more.
This Forbes article begins by noting an M.I.T. announcement (December 19, 2011) that it will offer free online courses – not its current decade old OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative with 2300 courses online anyone could audit but “a new online learning initiative, internally called M.I.T.x, which combines research, technical innovation and new online learning opportunities” and where
Individuals who complete the program will receive a certificate of completion.
The comments at the end of the article are well worth reading and included many naysayers who IOurHO missed the point that tens of millions of people around the world and currently cut off from ever attending college can, in the future, access…knowledge…vetted by some of the best and brightest minds in the world, and develop and collaborate with a learning network.
Whether or not these new 'learners' have ‘experienced’ a campus or formally been granted a degree is just not relevant from a global, long-term perspective.
Demonstrating what they know, what they can do with what they know (and with those they’ve developed a network to do it with) is what matters.
But that isn’t the whole point. Anyone who has looked at a TED presentation (any TED presentation), but especially the the Khan Academy story or, to bring it closer to home, simply sent a friend a link to an archived ERE Expo session after watching it live has to suspect that something new is in the wings.
Students (of every stripe) can access low cost, just-in-time learning objects that offer interaction with the author, networking & collaboration and ability to demonstrate mastery.
Trainers, educators and learning developers might look at this expertly developed Slideshare list of the Top 100 Learning Tools for 2011 compiled by Jane Hart. How many are you familiar with? How many of these would enhance your content; expand your reach 100 fold; create an interactive and collaborative platform to upgrade your content continuously?
Will geo-location learning events disappear? Not a chance but the cost and the expectations of going to a conference, attending a live seminar, traveling to a training, eventually matriculating at a college will escalate both in cost and expectations (where cost is not the issue).
Sitting in a darkened room in a lecture format in 2012 just won’t cut it at a national conference or anything less than an Ivy league campus (for now) where the content is video-streamed live (or recorded sub rosa by any number of attendees). If you can ‘see’ your fellow students, chat with the instructor and participate in the learning from your home or office, you are going to spend much more time doing that and learning what you need to learn when you need to learn it.
If you do attend in the flesh, you will want intense, face-to-face participative involvement emphasizing networking, hands on activities where highly specified outcomes are promised. This will draw you…but not much else. (Just notice how every conference is already shifting their focus from what goes on in their concurrent sessions to what goes on around them.)
Next year is the beginning of the end for current approaches to how we attend conferences; collaborate at seminars; develop ourselves and our colleagues; train our subordinates; support local-tax-based school systems; matriculate at college and, much more.
This Forbes article begins by noting an M.I.T. announcement (December 19, 2011) that it will offer free online courses – not its current decade old OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative with 2300 courses online anyone could audit but “a new online learning initiative, internally called M.I.T.x, which combines research, technical innovation and new online learning opportunities” and where
Students using the program will be able to communicate with their peers through student-to-student discussions, allowing them an opportunity to ask questions or simply brainstorm with others, while also being able to access online laboratories and self-assessments.
Individuals who complete the program will receive a certificate of completion.
The comments at the end of the article are well worth reading and included many naysayers who IOurHO missed the point that tens of millions of people around the world and currently cut off from ever attending college can, in the future, access…knowledge…vetted by some of the best and brightest minds in the world, and develop and collaborate with a learning network.
Whether or not these new 'learners' have ‘experienced’ a campus or formally been granted a degree is just not relevant from a global, long-term perspective.
Demonstrating what they know, what they can do with what they know (and with those they’ve developed a network to do it with) is what matters.
But that isn’t the whole point. Anyone who has looked at a TED presentation (any TED presentation), but especially the the Khan Academy story or, to bring it closer to home, simply sent a friend a link to an archived ERE Expo session after watching it live has to suspect that something new is in the wings.
Students (of every stripe) can access low cost, just-in-time learning objects that offer interaction with the author, networking & collaboration and ability to demonstrate mastery.
Trainers, educators and learning developers might look at this expertly developed Slideshare list of the Top 100 Learning Tools for 2011 compiled by Jane Hart. How many are you familiar with? How many of these would enhance your content; expand your reach 100 fold; create an interactive and collaborative platform to upgrade your content continuously?
Will geo-location learning events disappear? Not a chance but the cost and the expectations of going to a conference, attending a live seminar, traveling to a training, eventually matriculating at a college will escalate both in cost and expectations (where cost is not the issue).
Sitting in a darkened room in a lecture format in 2012 just won’t cut it at a national conference or anything less than an Ivy league campus (for now) where the content is video-streamed live (or recorded sub rosa by any number of attendees). If you can ‘see’ your fellow students, chat with the instructor and participate in the learning from your home or office, you are going to spend much more time doing that and learning what you need to learn when you need to learn it.
If you do attend in the flesh, you will want intense, face-to-face participative involvement emphasizing networking, hands on activities where highly specified outcomes are promised. This will draw you…but not much else. (Just notice how every conference is already shifting their focus from what goes on in their concurrent sessions to what goes on around them.)
Saturday, December 17, 2011
6. Brazil- Epilogue: 'Where Companies Can Grow Without Losing Their Soul' #SHRMGlobal
Our SHRM delegation of 20+ HR leaders came back from Brazil a week ago. I'm sending thank you's to the people I met.
The experience itself is still playing out. The DNA that makes up this unique culture- from their personal style of greeting a stranger to their music is addictive and recognizable everywhere.
The images, sounds and texture of this small slice of life we observed at work (but also at play) is a healthy blend of optimism, marked by a rapidly growing national pride and always, always with a flair for handling the unexpected challenge- jeitinho (see Howard Wallach's decription in his blog- Beautiful Brazil listed at end of this post).
Even a trip to a local Samba club and Rio's most famous landmark- the art deco statue of Christ the Redeemer offered insights as striking as the business meetings we attended. One reflected extreme landscapes…and for that mnatter, so did the other.
(I would share my pics from the Samba club but they were so hot the digital camera melted.)
Brazil is surely a country with extreme contrasts, even within our small sample of two cities- Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Our business agenda took us to 6 firms in those cities. We met with both business and HR leaders. Each firm was very different but, all were publicly acknowledged in some way as extraordinary places to work and where HR was central to the firm’s performance.
They included:
- A small, rapidly growing engineering firm (ChemTech) ranked by Great Places to Work as the #1 firm to work for in the country 2 years running (and as the most innovative firm in Brazil by several other organizations). Their solution to scarce talent was to reinvent the work around Gen Y engineers, managing perceived risk despite literally giving the responsibility to succeed to fresh out graduates…with lots of interesting twists and turns. Their average age in an industry whose average is likely 48 years old is 28.
- A true monopoly (communications and entertainment) in the classic sense (Globo) that manages its own brand image by intensely listening to its audience, its employees and its prospects and then delivering a customized experience…everywhere that Brazilians gather including places outside of Brazil.
- A US multi-national in the midst of a global transformation from a manufacturer to a service provider (Hewlett Packard) with 9,000 employees in Brazil. It was eye-opening to see a view of a firm that has been in the news from the inside and at the same time from outside its country of origin- especially how business and HR practices are configured to Brazilian employees.
- A Brazilian multi-national (Natura) and one of the top 'direct-sales' firms in the world (think Avon paired with natural ingredients from the Amazon jungle). This 7,000 person cosmetics and natural products firm is well known in Latin America and Europe (the US is in its sights). Its management style is a unique blend of Brazil’s culture, growing eco-consciousness, and OD management techniques emphasizing cooperation, collaboration and harmony. Its brand slogan "Bem estar bem" (Well being done well) translates to its employment brand in unique ways during the recruiting process- the emphasis is on the candidate learning enough to choose well.
- A regional package goods distribution center (FedEx) where a blend of technology, logistics and related employment practices, regulations and challenges in Brasil, Agentina, Chile, Uruguay were contrasted with our own.
- A purely Brazilian retail chain (Magazine Luiza) that has been ranked for a decade among Brazil’s top 10 firms to work for. This was the only firm where Portuguese translation was necessary but the open flow of ideas, questions and answers was free of barriers.
This firm founded by a woman is a cross between Walmart and Target- essentially a national chain of 716 big-box stores catering to the lower end of an emerging Brazilian middle class. With 24,000 employees the firm's training, development, communications (transparency) and benefit practices this firm chooses to provide (and it is a serious choice as the government requires that if you provide more than basic benefits to employees, you can’t take them back) are more akin to IT industry leaders like Google than they are the retail world.
As a result this firm’s employee engagement, customer loyalty and profit margins remain high while turnover is 50% of its industry average.
It was the stop where one of the leaders commented that "we are proof companies can grow without losing their soul."
One consistent theme for me with all of our conversations is the depth of knowledge that individuals in each firm had about how their unique company work ‘culture’, business objectives and broader national culture were aligned.. even blended to support one other.
I’m convinced there is much more the US can learn about developing and managing an employment brand from our Brazilian neighbors.
Having experienced a recent history that has run the gamut from hyper inflation, corruption, military dictatorships and social engineering, Brazil is far from free of challenges.
Its new found resources and growing middle class however, along with a strong sense of national pride in upcoming world events (World Soccer and Olympics) are now driving the view of its future.
As one leader put it “The only thing Brazil has in common with other ‘developing’ [BRIC] countries is that we are all growing. (And as someone who has been to all the BRIC countries in the last 2-3 years with time to examine their business practices, I would have to agree.)
Still, at the core, we are all similar in more ways than not.
Brazilians are often described (and describe themselves) as much more relationship than task driven; more interdependent than independent; more status conscious than egalitarian, etc. In some ways they are.
And yet, depending who you talk to, many people in certain sectors of US businesses, specifc geographic regions, ethnic origins, age cohorts, etc., could similarly be described.
To suggest the US business culture is always in a bit of flux and not necessarily to the left or right of any other country’s ‘characteristics’ wouldn’t be totally out of line.
It’s what we can learn from another culture when we want to build and balance our ‘relationships’ and then discover that there is a place that actually drives their business from within their culture- devoting extra hours of a business day to establishing and maintaining their relationships. Maybe we can better imagine the pros and cons about where our love affair with social media might take us if we paid closer attention.
It’s what folks used to being independent can learn about how to handle their interdependent kids (who now return home after they get their college degree) from a culture where it is the norm for children to live at home until they are 28...and how that translates to their behavior at work...or difficulty in working from home.
Lots of lessons to absorb.
Thank you to Howard Wallach, SHRM’s global exec, whose efforts made this trip so successful. I’ve only good things to say about the HR delegations to China, India and Brazil I’ve been on.
Take a look at Howards excellent blogs and pictures on the SHRM website.
- Rainbows in Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=648
- Brazil: where Culture Matters http://blog.shrm.org/?p=678
- Beautiful Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=687
- Brazilians take soccer...seriously http://blog.shrm.org/?p=724
- Farewell Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=740
And to our People-to-people guide, Marcella Granatiere, whose knowledge of Brazil and answers to "what’s that mean?" were an essential part of the experience- Obrigato! Marcella’s only failure was an attempt to teach us [me] a way to successfully fake the Samba.
A special thank you to all of the HR execs whose insights and friendship I’ve retained but whose foibles I’ll avoid detailing…at least until we can raise a Caiprihina to each other’s health…Saude!
Finally, thank you to Mike Hard and http://www.BountyJobs.com for sponsoring a good part of my trip.
Next stop….Israel, February 2012. A Nation of Entrepreneurs.
The experience itself is still playing out. The DNA that makes up this unique culture- from their personal style of greeting a stranger to their music is addictive and recognizable everywhere.
The images, sounds and texture of this small slice of life we observed at work (but also at play) is a healthy blend of optimism, marked by a rapidly growing national pride and always, always with a flair for handling the unexpected challenge- jeitinho (see Howard Wallach's decription in his blog- Beautiful Brazil listed at end of this post).
Even a trip to a local Samba club and Rio's most famous landmark- the art deco statue of Christ the Redeemer offered insights as striking as the business meetings we attended. One reflected extreme landscapes…and for that mnatter, so did the other.
(I would share my pics from the Samba club but they were so hot the digital camera melted.)
Brazil is surely a country with extreme contrasts, even within our small sample of two cities- Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Our business agenda took us to 6 firms in those cities. We met with both business and HR leaders. Each firm was very different but, all were publicly acknowledged in some way as extraordinary places to work and where HR was central to the firm’s performance.
They included:
- A small, rapidly growing engineering firm (ChemTech) ranked by Great Places to Work as the #1 firm to work for in the country 2 years running (and as the most innovative firm in Brazil by several other organizations). Their solution to scarce talent was to reinvent the work around Gen Y engineers, managing perceived risk despite literally giving the responsibility to succeed to fresh out graduates…with lots of interesting twists and turns. Their average age in an industry whose average is likely 48 years old is 28.
- A true monopoly (communications and entertainment) in the classic sense (Globo) that manages its own brand image by intensely listening to its audience, its employees and its prospects and then delivering a customized experience…everywhere that Brazilians gather including places outside of Brazil.
- A US multi-national in the midst of a global transformation from a manufacturer to a service provider (Hewlett Packard) with 9,000 employees in Brazil. It was eye-opening to see a view of a firm that has been in the news from the inside and at the same time from outside its country of origin- especially how business and HR practices are configured to Brazilian employees.
- A Brazilian multi-national (Natura) and one of the top 'direct-sales' firms in the world (think Avon paired with natural ingredients from the Amazon jungle). This 7,000 person cosmetics and natural products firm is well known in Latin America and Europe (the US is in its sights). Its management style is a unique blend of Brazil’s culture, growing eco-consciousness, and OD management techniques emphasizing cooperation, collaboration and harmony. Its brand slogan "Bem estar bem" (Well being done well) translates to its employment brand in unique ways during the recruiting process- the emphasis is on the candidate learning enough to choose well.
- A regional package goods distribution center (FedEx) where a blend of technology, logistics and related employment practices, regulations and challenges in Brasil, Agentina, Chile, Uruguay were contrasted with our own.
- A purely Brazilian retail chain (Magazine Luiza) that has been ranked for a decade among Brazil’s top 10 firms to work for. This was the only firm where Portuguese translation was necessary but the open flow of ideas, questions and answers was free of barriers.
This firm founded by a woman is a cross between Walmart and Target- essentially a national chain of 716 big-box stores catering to the lower end of an emerging Brazilian middle class. With 24,000 employees the firm's training, development, communications (transparency) and benefit practices this firm chooses to provide (and it is a serious choice as the government requires that if you provide more than basic benefits to employees, you can’t take them back) are more akin to IT industry leaders like Google than they are the retail world.
As a result this firm’s employee engagement, customer loyalty and profit margins remain high while turnover is 50% of its industry average.
It was the stop where one of the leaders commented that "we are proof companies can grow without losing their soul."
One consistent theme for me with all of our conversations is the depth of knowledge that individuals in each firm had about how their unique company work ‘culture’, business objectives and broader national culture were aligned.. even blended to support one other.
I’m convinced there is much more the US can learn about developing and managing an employment brand from our Brazilian neighbors.
Having experienced a recent history that has run the gamut from hyper inflation, corruption, military dictatorships and social engineering, Brazil is far from free of challenges.
Its new found resources and growing middle class however, along with a strong sense of national pride in upcoming world events (World Soccer and Olympics) are now driving the view of its future.
As one leader put it “The only thing Brazil has in common with other ‘developing’ [BRIC] countries is that we are all growing. (And as someone who has been to all the BRIC countries in the last 2-3 years with time to examine their business practices, I would have to agree.)
Still, at the core, we are all similar in more ways than not.
Brazilians are often described (and describe themselves) as much more relationship than task driven; more interdependent than independent; more status conscious than egalitarian, etc. In some ways they are.
And yet, depending who you talk to, many people in certain sectors of US businesses, specifc geographic regions, ethnic origins, age cohorts, etc., could similarly be described.
To suggest the US business culture is always in a bit of flux and not necessarily to the left or right of any other country’s ‘characteristics’ wouldn’t be totally out of line.
It’s what we can learn from another culture when we want to build and balance our ‘relationships’ and then discover that there is a place that actually drives their business from within their culture- devoting extra hours of a business day to establishing and maintaining their relationships. Maybe we can better imagine the pros and cons about where our love affair with social media might take us if we paid closer attention.
It’s what folks used to being independent can learn about how to handle their interdependent kids (who now return home after they get their college degree) from a culture where it is the norm for children to live at home until they are 28...and how that translates to their behavior at work...or difficulty in working from home.
Lots of lessons to absorb.
Thank you to Howard Wallach, SHRM’s global exec, whose efforts made this trip so successful. I’ve only good things to say about the HR delegations to China, India and Brazil I’ve been on.
Take a look at Howards excellent blogs and pictures on the SHRM website.
- Rainbows in Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=648
- Brazil: where Culture Matters http://blog.shrm.org/?p=678
- Beautiful Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=687
- Brazilians take soccer...seriously http://blog.shrm.org/?p=724
- Farewell Brazil http://blog.shrm.org/?p=740
And to our People-to-people guide, Marcella Granatiere, whose knowledge of Brazil and answers to "what’s that mean?" were an essential part of the experience- Obrigato! Marcella’s only failure was an attempt to teach us [me] a way to successfully fake the Samba.
A special thank you to all of the HR execs whose insights and friendship I’ve retained but whose foibles I’ll avoid detailing…at least until we can raise a Caiprihina to each other’s health…Saude!
Finally, thank you to Mike Hard and http://www.BountyJobs.com for sponsoring a good part of my trip.
Next stop….Israel, February 2012. A Nation of Entrepreneurs.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Brazil is the beautiful lady at the party. Everyone wants to dance with her.” #shrmglobal
It´s Sunday afternoon, December 4 and our last day in Brazil. I’ve not had a chance to Journal or Blog since Wednesday.
The time flew by. Sleep…not so much. Great conversations- individually and in groups as the delegation members bonded and shared impressions with each other. I´ll be absorbing and reflecting for weeks…months and beyond.
Here are a few thoughts at just one of the stops, Hewlett Packard, in Sao Paulo, Brazil´s business capital to illustrate the way some of these ‘conversations’ begin and…never end.
Wednesday morning HP’s [country] President & General Manager, Oskar Clarke, welcomed us with open arms, a booming voice and an ever expanding smile. He immediately introduced himself, said he could explain Brazil, then walked over to each delegate [23] offering an enthusiastic handshake, kisses on both cheeks, a personal question, comment and, a promise that he will always respond to our emails within 48 hours. (I’m about to test this last claim)
Oskar is more than animated. Our delegation all agrees (after a further day or two of reflection), that his leadership style is prototypical Brazil. He is confident, optimistic to a fault, engaging to the extreme.
We tend use the word `passionate´ liberally in the US but too often the people who say it don’t display it. In Brazil, you really don’t have to say the word (although they do) as the behavior is unmistakable.
Describing his challenges as a business leader with 9,000 employees in-country, Oskar, who has been onboard for less than a year, noted that running a company like HP is complex.
In his own way he is making the case that business at its core is the same everywhere.
"We have 7 business units and each of them is measured by their own P&L metrics…but customers want a single way to deal with HP w/o silos. Breaking the silos and linking the businesses as a team is the only way to grow. The [disconnected] metrics are against us in the short time but by using ‘cheek-to-cheek’ [face-to-face] to build one team we will succeed." "After all, Oskar points out, "The most sensitive part of the human being is the pocket." (Gotta love it)
While HP has 9000 employees in Brazil, there are 330,000 globally operating 170 countries. The average worker (IT professional) is 34. 600 open reqs are currently on the desks of 20 recruiters. There are about 30 more employees in HR for a total of 50. Up until recently, 80% of the external hires were 3rd party sourced. That is already down to 20%. About 60% are now from referrals….and not necessarily just ‘employee’ referrals. Attrition is 14.3% down from 21% as better staffing and HR practices have been ramped up.
But responding to the growth hasn’t come without pain. 41% of employees have less than 2 years at HP. The company made 1000 counteroffers between 2009 & 2010 (no comment here).
Oskar, and later on Antonio, HP’s HR leader, were both open about recent events in the US that catapulted HP into the news but quickly returned to the theme of transformation in Brazil and the evolving role of HR.
At HP, HR is revisiting its roots and rewriting/updating the company’s ‘HP Way’ values.
The real interest here are the many specific and non-trivial, local issues to address.
Sao Paulo, for example, has a traffic problem. And, when you consider that more than 20 million people are in the city’s I can certainly relate living just 35 miles south of NYC myself. So, when Antonio said it can take as long as an hour to drive to work, I’m thinking “reasonable”.
Not so. He lives only two miles away from his office (and can walk to work in less than half an hour). Mass transit does exist but, the number of miles of subway/bus lines here is a fraction of what is available for a city this size in other parts of the world.
We’re not done with this issue however. The Sao Paulo government, in its wisdom, decided they could reduce emissions as well as congestion of the ‘Paulistas’ (who drive 7 million cars) by decree. Paulistas with license plates ending in a ‘1’ or a ‘2’ can’t drive their cars on Monday. By Friday, theoretically, every worker has taken their car off the streets at least once. Or have they?
It seems that instead of fewer cars, the locals (who might not have been within easy walking distance…there are hills here after all) are now acquiring second cars (with license plate whose numbers are not in conflict)- adding significantly to all the congestion.
We’re not done. Only about 2% of HPs professional workers in Sao Paulo are currently “teleworkers” working from home every day. Mobile workers who come to work and share a table represent about 20% of the workforce and about 35% have flexible arrangements a major value prop for HP Brazil but this is not easy to find elsewhere.
One reason, we were told, is that many of the men and women who graduate from college do not leave their parent’s homes until much later than in the US- usually not until they are married. Imagine trying to work at home with mom at the age of 30?
Once married, modern families tend to have both spouses working…and, in Latin/ SA countries this means both are putting in longer hours at the office than we are used to (relationship discussions are a necessary part of work, lunches are longer, etc., etc.).
Long hours, higher pay, mean that the couple is more likely to have live-in help that is affordable and evident at a level well below the C-level. This also makes working from home… awkward.
Still, HP is bucking the trend on working from home and making small inroads.
There is one more challenge related to the initial problem of traffic congestion. One that comes up…over and over…and it is the ‘duty’ charged on imports. A $20,000 car in the US might cost a Brazilian $40,000 with nearly 80% the difference attributed to import duties.
Cars are just the tip of it. Electronics, watches, Smart phones, clothes- everything not made here costs twice as much here as anywhere else. For cars this likely translates to cheaper cars less well maintained…more emissions.
It also means that total compensation of professionals is much more likely (depending on level, scarcity of skills, etc.) to include some car related perks that may not be evident in the salary.
So, as the unintended consequences of Sao Paulo´s congestion unfolds we get into wide ranging conversations about work hours, telecommuting obstacles, class conscious societies, compensation and more.
Annually, Brazil is graduating 35,000 engineers but there is already an estimated increase of 55,000 openings for these new grads.
At the experienced level, firms are already having to outsource work to Argentina, Mexico and other countries.
This gets us into discussions around contingent work, co-employment…not just here but in related countries looking to protect their workers from abuse.
Scarcity isn’t the only issue driving Brazilian firms to move some of their operations beyond their borders.
The cost of employees in Brazil because of taxes and government mandated (8%) comp increases (plus 1.5-3% voluntary performance increases) is beginning to impact multi-natioinal profit margins. Sound familiar?
The comment that “We [Brazil] have nothing in common with BRIC other than that we are growing” is certainly something firms interested in expanding to the country need to consider. Cheap labor this isn´t. Some salaries here are higher than in the US even if the purchasing power is not.
Branding is an issue. The reason why people want to work for HP Brazil today we were told [from their in depth surveys]is because "we are a huge brand, highly respected (tied with Google as most desired), a fast-paced technology company, work flexibility, and global."
However, with Brazil’s rise, the dream job is to work for a Brazilian firm. More on that soon.
The time flew by. Sleep…not so much. Great conversations- individually and in groups as the delegation members bonded and shared impressions with each other. I´ll be absorbing and reflecting for weeks…months and beyond.
Here are a few thoughts at just one of the stops, Hewlett Packard, in Sao Paulo, Brazil´s business capital to illustrate the way some of these ‘conversations’ begin and…never end.
Wednesday morning HP’s [country] President & General Manager, Oskar Clarke, welcomed us with open arms, a booming voice and an ever expanding smile. He immediately introduced himself, said he could explain Brazil, then walked over to each delegate [23] offering an enthusiastic handshake, kisses on both cheeks, a personal question, comment and, a promise that he will always respond to our emails within 48 hours. (I’m about to test this last claim)
Oskar is more than animated. Our delegation all agrees (after a further day or two of reflection), that his leadership style is prototypical Brazil. He is confident, optimistic to a fault, engaging to the extreme.
We tend use the word `passionate´ liberally in the US but too often the people who say it don’t display it. In Brazil, you really don’t have to say the word (although they do) as the behavior is unmistakable.
Describing his challenges as a business leader with 9,000 employees in-country, Oskar, who has been onboard for less than a year, noted that running a company like HP is complex.
In his own way he is making the case that business at its core is the same everywhere.
"We have 7 business units and each of them is measured by their own P&L metrics…but customers want a single way to deal with HP w/o silos. Breaking the silos and linking the businesses as a team is the only way to grow. The [disconnected] metrics are against us in the short time but by using ‘cheek-to-cheek’ [face-to-face] to build one team we will succeed." "After all, Oskar points out, "The most sensitive part of the human being is the pocket." (Gotta love it)
While HP has 9000 employees in Brazil, there are 330,000 globally operating 170 countries. The average worker (IT professional) is 34. 600 open reqs are currently on the desks of 20 recruiters. There are about 30 more employees in HR for a total of 50. Up until recently, 80% of the external hires were 3rd party sourced. That is already down to 20%. About 60% are now from referrals….and not necessarily just ‘employee’ referrals. Attrition is 14.3% down from 21% as better staffing and HR practices have been ramped up.
But responding to the growth hasn’t come without pain. 41% of employees have less than 2 years at HP. The company made 1000 counteroffers between 2009 & 2010 (no comment here).
Oskar, and later on Antonio, HP’s HR leader, were both open about recent events in the US that catapulted HP into the news but quickly returned to the theme of transformation in Brazil and the evolving role of HR.
At HP, HR is revisiting its roots and rewriting/updating the company’s ‘HP Way’ values.
The real interest here are the many specific and non-trivial, local issues to address.
Sao Paulo, for example, has a traffic problem. And, when you consider that more than 20 million people are in the city’s I can certainly relate living just 35 miles south of NYC myself. So, when Antonio said it can take as long as an hour to drive to work, I’m thinking “reasonable”.
Not so. He lives only two miles away from his office (and can walk to work in less than half an hour). Mass transit does exist but, the number of miles of subway/bus lines here is a fraction of what is available for a city this size in other parts of the world.
We’re not done with this issue however. The Sao Paulo government, in its wisdom, decided they could reduce emissions as well as congestion of the ‘Paulistas’ (who drive 7 million cars) by decree. Paulistas with license plates ending in a ‘1’ or a ‘2’ can’t drive their cars on Monday. By Friday, theoretically, every worker has taken their car off the streets at least once. Or have they?
It seems that instead of fewer cars, the locals (who might not have been within easy walking distance…there are hills here after all) are now acquiring second cars (with license plate whose numbers are not in conflict)- adding significantly to all the congestion.
We’re not done. Only about 2% of HPs professional workers in Sao Paulo are currently “teleworkers” working from home every day. Mobile workers who come to work and share a table represent about 20% of the workforce and about 35% have flexible arrangements a major value prop for HP Brazil but this is not easy to find elsewhere.
One reason, we were told, is that many of the men and women who graduate from college do not leave their parent’s homes until much later than in the US- usually not until they are married. Imagine trying to work at home with mom at the age of 30?
Once married, modern families tend to have both spouses working…and, in Latin/ SA countries this means both are putting in longer hours at the office than we are used to (relationship discussions are a necessary part of work, lunches are longer, etc., etc.).
Long hours, higher pay, mean that the couple is more likely to have live-in help that is affordable and evident at a level well below the C-level. This also makes working from home… awkward.
Still, HP is bucking the trend on working from home and making small inroads.
There is one more challenge related to the initial problem of traffic congestion. One that comes up…over and over…and it is the ‘duty’ charged on imports. A $20,000 car in the US might cost a Brazilian $40,000 with nearly 80% the difference attributed to import duties.
Cars are just the tip of it. Electronics, watches, Smart phones, clothes- everything not made here costs twice as much here as anywhere else. For cars this likely translates to cheaper cars less well maintained…more emissions.
It also means that total compensation of professionals is much more likely (depending on level, scarcity of skills, etc.) to include some car related perks that may not be evident in the salary.
So, as the unintended consequences of Sao Paulo´s congestion unfolds we get into wide ranging conversations about work hours, telecommuting obstacles, class conscious societies, compensation and more.
Annually, Brazil is graduating 35,000 engineers but there is already an estimated increase of 55,000 openings for these new grads.
At the experienced level, firms are already having to outsource work to Argentina, Mexico and other countries.
This gets us into discussions around contingent work, co-employment…not just here but in related countries looking to protect their workers from abuse.
Scarcity isn’t the only issue driving Brazilian firms to move some of their operations beyond their borders.
The cost of employees in Brazil because of taxes and government mandated (8%) comp increases (plus 1.5-3% voluntary performance increases) is beginning to impact multi-natioinal profit margins. Sound familiar?
The comment that “We [Brazil] have nothing in common with BRIC other than that we are growing” is certainly something firms interested in expanding to the country need to consider. Cheap labor this isn´t. Some salaries here are higher than in the US even if the purchasing power is not.
Branding is an issue. The reason why people want to work for HP Brazil today we were told [from their in depth surveys]is because "we are a huge brand, highly respected (tied with Google as most desired), a fast-paced technology company, work flexibility, and global."
However, with Brazil’s rise, the dream job is to work for a Brazilian firm. More on that soon.
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