Baby Boomers, The Aging Population and Human Resources

HRmarketer.com's sister product SeniorCareMarketer.com is sponsoring this years Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit & Business Plan Competition.

The Facebook page for this event is here.

These are sensational events and attract some very prominent VCs (including corporate VCs) in the Silicon Valley marketplace.

Summit highlights include:

• Learn where and why VCs are investing heavily in the boomer market - hear from VC portfolio companies
• Learn from key analysts how they segment the market and evaluate opportunity
• Hear all Business Plan Competition finalists present their business ideas to the blue ribbon panel of judges

Who is attending?

• Investors and venture capitalists
• Corporate strategists and marketing experts
• Analysts who track segments of the market
• Organizations that serve the boomer consumer
• Media that report on the boomer marketplace
• Entrepreneurs who serve this market

So what does this have to do with HR?

A lot. Especially for companies that sell wellness, EAP, work-life, and any other product/service that relates to elder care and the aging workforce - even senior job boards!

In March I posted a blog Seniors Fuel Increase in Career-Site Visitors. The Bigger Picture. In the blog I stated how when Fisher Vista LLC first launched SeniorCareMarketer, I believed it to be a totally different market than HRmarketer.com.

I was wrong.

As I speak with senior care and HR vendors I am realizing these two services are quite complementary. It's actually quite amazing.

Our economy is going through unprecedented changes as are the demographics of the world (aging population) and every company must think about how they will react to these changes.

I'm already seeing some senior care vendors enter the HR space by repackaging and introducing their B2C products/services to employers as elder care type benefits - and competing quite effectively with established EAPs and work-life companies. I'm also seeing forward thinking HR vendors enter the B2C space by repackaging their services for aging boomers and/or caregivers. Or putting a new twist on their corporate offerings to capitalize on this demographic change. In fact, our HRmarketer Services Group is working with one of these companies at the moment.

I know it is last minute but consider attending one of these Boomer events. If you are an HRmarketer member give your account rep a call and we can give you a free trial to SeniorCareMarketer.com so you can search for some events that make sense for you.

Either way, at your next strategy meeting give some thought as to how your company can evolve to better meet the needs of an aging population.

There will be lots of opportunities.

The Latest HR Market Share Podcast: Interview with Peter Clayton, producer and host of Total Picture Radio

The latest HR Market Share podcast is ready for your listening pleasure below. Subscribe to the series in iTunes and look for regular posts to our blog and on the HRmarketer.com site. You can also subscribe to all our past interviews and episodes via Hipcast.

Our latest episode includes some HR marketplace news and a great interview with the consummate industry interviewer - Peter Clayton, producer and host of Total Picture Radio.

Total Picture Radio presents a "total picture" of emerging trends, thought leaders, and for-real gurus to help high-potential professionals succeed in your career goals. TPR is here to fill the media vacuum regarding career advice and advocacy by providing the latest trends, knowledge, actionable information and resources to its listeners. Peter has interviewed hundreds of HR marketplace thought leaders, movers and shakers.

If you don't listen to TPR, then you're just plain missing out on "the know".

If you'd like to be interviewed on our podcast about what's working in marketing and PR or anything about the HR marketplace, or if you have feedback and suggestions for the podcast, please email me at hrmarketshare(at)hrmarketer(dot)com or kgrossman(at)hrmarkter(dot)com.

Thank you and enjoy!

• Total Picture Radio
  
• The coolest collection of HR-related news and content found online is in our HR Directory (get a profile up if you're not already there)
• News for HR Newsletter
• HR Vendor Newsletter
  
• More HR marketplace news here and here

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

It’s 12 O’Clock—Do You Know Where Your Audience Is?

I recently read a blog post at Social Media Today about sharp declines in magazine advertising and readership. The original article from Media Daily News is available here. The statistics are pretty grim for the publishing world: ad pages in many big titles are down 30-49%. Such venerable publications as Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal and Entertainment Weekly have all seen double-digit declines in readership. And Newsweek is doing a relaunch in hopes of surviving. Not to mention the newspapers that are dropping like flies across the country.

I have been noticing the downward trend in advertising over the past two years. As the Media Relations Specialist here at HRmarketer.com, it’s my job to make sure we have the current ad rates available for our subscribers. I began to notice that the majority of print publications were either not increasing or actually decreasing their display advertising rates.

I’ve also observed this trend by the weight of the magazines that come into our office. Lately, many of the titles are so thin and light that I fear for their survival.

What does this mean for you, the (possibly former) advertisers? Well, for one thing, it means your audience is shrinking. There are fewer prospects reading your ads, which not only limits the reach of your ads but increases your cost per lead. It also means fewer editorial opportunities, as editorial copy is often driven by ads.

One could argue that fewer advertisers means your ad is more likely to stand out. If you want to be a big fish in an ever-shrinking pond, you are certainly entitled to be that. I am not trying to contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom for the print world, but the statistics seem to speak for themselves.

Those statistics also speak to the greater importance of online media. ZenithOptimedia Group's quarterly tracking study on the advertising economy declares: "The Internet is the only medium expected to reap advertising increases during 2009." Even in the midst of a recession.

The study gives specifics about types of online advertising:

"In the U.S. we predict search advertising to grow 9.0% in 2009, while classified grows just 1.8% and traditional display shrinks 1.8%. New formats are enjoying greater growth (29.8% from Internet video and rich media, 29.7% from Internet radio and 11.9% from podcasts), but these represent only 12% of US internet expenditure between them."

This year, the Internet will replace magazines as the third largest advertising medium, behind TV and newspapers. So, you may have thought you knew where to find buyers for your products and services, but many of them have probably migrated to the Internet.

Plan your 2009 advertising and marketing campaigns with that in mind.

Posted by Heath Havlick

Me, the Company and Brand Consistency

Catching up on my podcasts this week I checked out Peter Clayton’s Total Picture Radio interview of Dan Shawbel (pronounced Shaw-bell not schwa-bull as I butchered it recently while interviewing Peter Clayton of all things - sorry Dan!).

Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success and he’s all about personal branding.

What struck me the most was the emphasis on managing your personal brand across the online (and offline) spectrum when managing your career and job search. The millennials aren’t the only kids learning to manage their personal brand.

We all like to Google ourselves. Don’t deny it. For those interested in managing their personal brand, it’s actually very important to do so, to know what we’re being found for (and then why). Google has even taken advantage of this and launched Google Profile.

And we like to Google our companies. We search for terms like “selling to HR” and are so happy to see when we come up number 1 (and 2, and 3, and…). That’s why we do the SEO work we do.

But what are you and your company being found for online?

Transparency is where it’s at these days with your personal and professional brand: they are practically synonymous these days. Transparency keeps you and your brand honest and your buyers are more sophisticated about honesty and integrity than you think, especially in this recession.

For smaller HR suppliers, the business owners and executive management are the brand. Wait, everybody is the brand. What your talent says and does and posts online is permanently fused to your brand.

My Godot, it’s a supercalifragilexistential brand management extravaganza for any sized company!

I’m not talking about crisis communications after the fact of some faux pas; I’m talking about proactive consistent brand messaging day to day.

Marketing drives this and these are the brand management activities you need to pay attention to and participate in:

• Your search-optimized website contains the marketing eyes to your company’s soul. Get it right and keep it flush with fresh content.
• Make sure your company has consistent brand messaging for all to evangelize. Take the time to figure this out and the time to modify from time to time.
• Create lots of content, content, content with consistent brand messaging in the forms of white papers, research reports, articles, webcasts, podcasts, etc. (which is part 2 of our 3-part marketing series coming out soon).
• Ensure consistent brand messaging in your media pitches, search-optimized press releases and direct marketing campaigns.
• Ensure consistent brand messaging when exhibiting and/or sponsoring and/or speaking at a trade show or a breakfast, lunch or dinner event.
• Ensure consistent brand messaging when you’re on a park bench or in an elevator.
• Ensure consistent brand messaging when blogging and commenting on blogs.
• Ensure consistent brand messaging when participating in social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning networks, and a gazillion others. That includes personal profiles and company profiles.
• Make sure everyone is allowed to be themselves in their online personal and professional lives, but also curb the rogues who may jeopardize your business (that’s where some form of guidelines and HR governance comes into play).

Brand management is more of an oxymoron than reality, but you and your team can guide and be part of the brand conversation that grows your business.

Be brand bold, be brand brash, be brand different – but for goodness sake, be brand consistent.

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

The Latest HR Market Share Podcast: Interview with Bucky Couch, managing director of StepStone USA

The latest HR Market Share podcast is ready for your listening pleasure below. Subscribe to the series in iTunes and look for regular posts to our blog and on the HRmarketer.com site. You can also subscribe to all our past interviews and episodes via Hipcast.

The latest episode is a special one with an interview with Bucky Couch, managing director of StepStone USA. StepStone partnered with the Economist Intelligence Unit on a research report called the The Cold War for Talent.

In the The Cold War for Talent, data indicates the war for talent is not over — it’s the nature of the battle that has changed. While employers tighten their belts through redundancies, the need to fill key roles remains critical. Pools of re-trenched workers are being scoured for top talent, and benefits are being reworked to keep talented employees motivated and performing during a tough time.

Other key findings include:

• In many developing markets, growth is expected to continue, albeit at a reduced rate. Competition to hire skilled employees remains fierce for local firms and multinationals alike, especially in Asia and Latin America.
• 52 percent of respondents agree that the slowdown will mean either reducing staffing levels, scaling back or freezing recruitment.
• 27 percent see this as an opportunity to target competitors‘ employees who have lost their jobs.
• There is strong evidence that labor shortages will continue, with 46 percent agreeing that recruiting and retaining talented employees is becoming more difficult, and a similar proportion (48 percent) identify a shortage of talent in their organizations.
• 40 percent of respondents note that additional training for current employees has helped them fill talent gaps in the past year
• 58 percent cite career development as a critical factor in efforts to recruit and retain key employees.
• 61 percent of executives say that the people most responsible for talent management are outside HR, while less than half (47%) believe that the metrics used by HR departments to measure a firm‘s strengths and weaknesses are of value.

The interview is chock full of great global insight from the report. Enjoy.

If you'd like to be interviewed on our podcast about what's working in marketing and PR or anything about the HR marketplace, or if you have feedback and suggestions for the podcast, please email me at hrmarketshare(at)hrmarketer(dot)com or kgrossman(at)hrmarkter(dot)com.

Thank you and enjoy!

• StepStone
• The Cold War for Talent
  
• The coolest collection of HR-related news and content found online is in our HR Community (get a profile up if you're not already there)
• News for HR Newsletter
• HR Vendor Newsletter
  
• More HR marketplace news here and here

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

NY HR Week Post-Show Report

The NY HR Week™ conference took place May 4 – 6, in New York City.

THE GOOD

1. The location was great – the Hilton on Avenue of Americas in New York City.
2. The collection of three distinct conferences hit on hot employment sectors– HRO World, HR in Healthcare and HR and EEO in the Federal Workplace.
3. The Platinum and Gold sponsors’ information was very visible.
4. The vendors were set up and raring to talk to all attendees in the exhibit hall.
5. All of the attendees, both HR practitioners and vendors were treated very well with fabulous meals and registration goodies.
6. I think that the conference was organized well – it was easy to find where you needed to be, the volunteers were very helpful and friendly, the list of the topics and sessions were well thought out and seemed to be relevant to the issues and pains experienced by those HR professionals in the specific track. They even had one-on-one sessions if the attendees wished, with thought leaders in each of those tracks. For anyone attending to learn and receive various insights on their issues – this was a valuable conference for that.

THE NOT SO GOOD

Why was it not as successful as it could have been? I see a number of things playing a role in this:

1. Unfortunately, there was not always the buzz of conversation happening on the exhibition floor. The vendors indicated that the majority of the attendees were within the Federal Track, and only a very small percentage of the vendors would sell into that target. Where were the rest of the attendees?
2. The sessions were scheduled during the exhibit hours, and so it is hard for any attendee to be at two places at once. However, word was that those sessions were not full either. The session that I attended had a speaker that was the HR director from the largest employer in US, and there may have been a dozen participants. It was first thing in the morning and it was in the Federal track, so perhaps that explains the lack of attendees, but I am not convinced of that.
3. The meals and breaks were fabulous, however they were not in the exhibit hall, and in order to get to them, you did not have to pass through much of the exhibit floor and a seasoned professional could very easily pass by those five or six vendors with eyes averted.
4. I hate to state the obvious BUT the economics of our times have forced many companies to restrict, freeze or eliminate any travel budgets for those HR practitioners that would have benefited from this conference. Though being in New York City, you would have thought that local corporations would have sent people, and that would have boosted the numbers.
5. Even some of the vendors decided to pull out of exhibiting at this conference, and again I presume, due to restricted budgets. I noticed a couple of HR Solution providers who decided to be a Platinum/Gold sponsor, BUT choose not to exhibit on the floor. To save money on travel and shipping, and yet still have a presence? I would think so and perhaps a strategy that will work best right now.
6. I did not hear about many exciting, new announcements. The floor was interestingly silent about that – but some very exciting awards were given out on Tuesday night at the Awards Ceremony at the Russian Tea Room.

THE VERY GOOD

A number of HRmarketer clients were in the winner’s circle and more were nominated for some awards and we are very proud of their achievement.

1. Kelly OCG was honored with an award for “Customer Relationship of the Year” Large Market because of their long standing relationship with GE Money.
2. ADP was also awarded with an award for “Customer Relationship of the Year” in the Mid Market with The E.W. Scripps Company. ADP was also nominated for another award with their client Sodexo.
3. We are also proud of our clients that were nominated for these awards – SilkRoad Technology with their client Plante & Moran; Ceredian with their client Veyance Technologies and The RightThing with their client WellPoint. The RightThing’s president, Jamie Minier, was also nominated for Innovative Executive of the year.

The NY HR Week has been offering an organized and varied program for seven years now, and I anticipate that they will continue to have this event. Will this year encourage the organizers to revitalize the program for the benefit of the sponsors and attendees? Or are they convinced that the results have a direct relationship to the economy? Sorry, I can’t answer that – but I can say – gee I love NYC.

Posted by Rita Jackson.

The Latest HR Market Share Podcast: Interview with Bon Idziak, president of Applicant Insight

The latest HR Market Share podcast is ready for your listening pleasure below. Subscribe to the series in iTunes and look for regular posts to our blog and on the HRmarketer.com site. You can also subscribe to all our past interviews and episodes via Hipcast.

The latest episode includes marketplace news, what's new with HR products and services, seemingly random acts of marketing and PR, and the podcast main feature with Bon Idziak, president of Applicant Insight who speaks with HRmarketer's Jonathan Goodman about the state of the background screening industry how Ai has positioned itself to sustain and thrive in this recession. Ai has big plans this year. While Bon would not divulge the details, he promises more news to come from Ai over the course of 2009. Listen to the podcast for all the insight.

If you'd like to be interviewed on our podcast about what's working in marketing and PR or anything about the HR marketplace, or if you have feedback and suggestions for the podcast, please email me at hrmarketshare(at)hrmarketer(dot)com or kgrossman(at)hrmarkter(dot)com.

Thank you and enjoy!

• The coolest collection of HR-related news and content found online is in our HR Community (get a profile up if you're not already there)
• News for HR Newsletter
• The HR Space: A No-Sludge Zone
  
• More HR marketplace news here and here
• Applicant Insight
• NAPBS
  

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

Investing. Executive Pay. Leadership Development. Notes from the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway Meeting.

I was once again privileged to be able to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting and absorb the wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. As I have previously stated, this is more than a shareholders meeting - it is both an investment seminar and business conference and in my opinion, the best out there. Attendees can learn more about management, leadership development and growing a business than by attending any other event. I really mean that.

Because many of the themes are repeated each year and I have already blogged about them, I'll just summarize what I found to be the most interesting (excluding topics on economy, health care, personal investing, etc.) topics of discussion for this audience. For all the other stuff here is a pretty detailed transcript of this year's meeting.

BUSINESS INVESTMENTS
At it's core, Buffet says, investment involves putting out cash now to get more back in the future. Period. Buffet criticized so called financial experts - and business schools - for over complicating this fact saying if you need to rely on a computer to tell you whether or not to buy a business or invest in a project/company you probably should not do the investment. In fact, he said, the worst business decisions are made when you rely on complex future cash flow projections involving algorithms nobody understands. "Beware of geeks with formulas" says Buffett.

HERD MENTALITY
Both Munger and Buffet also criticized flavor of the day type thinking. This came up when discussing how so many banks got into trouble with sub prime mortgages. Buffet said "he did not ever want to here from a manager that the reason they propose doing something is because everyone else is doing it. If that's the only sound reason a manager can give for wanting to do something, it's not good enough. I think all of us in the HR technology marketplace have been guilty of this at one time or another in our careers. I know I have. Especially when making cash allocation and marketing decisions. We should constantly challenge our beliefs.

EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
Buffet and Munger once again were extremely critical of executive pay and in particular, compensation consultants. Munger quipped that CEOs have a vested interest in irrational compensation packages (recommended by compensation consulting firms) because they pay more. Buffet said figuring out how to pay people is not difficult and you don't need outside consultants. He claims not a single Berkshire manager has ever hired a compensation consulting firm and no manager/executive has ever left Berkshire due to compensation issues. Nor, Buffet claims, do you need a "100 page proxy statement to describe your executive pay plans."

How do Buffett and Munger propose fixing it?

Outside of personal responsibility of the executive, both Munger and Buffet agreed on the need for truly "independent boards". Munger believes the best way to get independent boards is not to pay board members (I believe Berkshire pays their directors less than any other Fortune 500). It's hard to be independent when a major chunk of your income comes from being a board member. Munger also suggested that instead of boards subbing the work to a comp committee they should make it a general board discussion.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
In response to a succession question on Berkshire, Buffet would not name his successor but he did confirm the next CEO would come from within Berkshire and three candidates have already been identified by the Board; and each could assume the role tomorrow if necessary. As far as how to groom a potential CEO Munger stated that the best ones are executives who already run businesses. He used Johnson & Johnson as an example of how to groom leaders saying Berkshire and J&J are a lot a like in this regard by giving heads of operating companies the autonomy to run their units. Munger believes that it is better training for candidates to run their own operating subsidiaries than to be at headquarters.

BUILDING A BUSINESS
Finally, for those who did not read Mr. Buffett's annual letter to shareholders (a must read for anyone in business), I'd like to paraphrase what Buffett considers his four goals for managing Berkshire (in good times and bad) into four rules for building a successful business (which incidentally should never include the phrase "exit strategy" according to Buffett):

1. Work toward achieving and maintaining a strong financial position. IOW, a good balance sheet.
2. Widen the moats around your businesses to give them durable competitive advantages.
3. Acquire and/or develop new and varied streams of earnings.
4. Expand and nurture your outstanding managers.

Good stuff. Brilliant in its simplicity but complex in its execution.

The HR Space: A No-Sludge Zone

We’re a marketing firm. A pretty darn good one too. But our success is predicated on the success of the HR marketplace and the businesses that sell HR-related products and services. And those businesses’ success is predicated by companies worldwide purchasing those HR-related products and services.

All economic indicators “indicate” that there’s more sludge to wade through before we truly bottom out and rise above, but we’ve seen sparks of life in April. (You think any HR suppliers have a shot at Buffett’s 20 million?)

Sparks of life are odd, since April historically has been a slow month in this space, but this is an odd world we do business in.

The primary indicator for us has been a flurry of business in April, including our acquisition of the HR Vendor Phonebook. You can catch with all the latest M&A activity here.

Focusing again on April you may have read some of these headlines:

• iCIMS Announces Record Breaking 1st Quarter With More Than 50 New Customer Signings
• Workday toiling toward IPO?
• JobApp Network Reports Record Growth and Secures Credit Facility to Fuel Expansion
• The Good News: AllRetailJobs.com Expects Retailers to Hire Millions of New Employees in 2009

Sure, some of it’s about the spin, but we think more and more businesses are becoming acclimated to the brave new world of business and are forging ahead.

We’ll also bet you can expect these marketing trends this year and next (which follow our annual vendor reports):

• Less spend on traditional like trade shows and print ads and more on direct email marketing and online PR (search-optimized press releases).
• More spend on SEO/marketing Web sites (thank goodness – you gotta be found online folks).
• A reinvestment in backyard marketing (join us for this week’s webinar with John Sumser about regional marketing opportunities).
• More time investment in social media marketing (that’s all it takes to spread some viral news).
• Content marketing (nowHIRE had over 500 registrants for their latest I-9 compliance/E-Verify webinar and KnowledgePay had hundreds of downloads of their 10 Tips to Managing Compensation in a Downturn).
  

Let’s all hope we can slip n’ slide through the summer months and come out the other side drenched in new sales and not more sludge.

Post by Kevin Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)