Link: http://acetalentnet.com.au/enews/newsletmar08.html

Trust you enjoyed a relaxing Easter break and if anything like me have sworn off chocolate for the foreseeable future??? Making news this month starts with an article by the Adelaide Advertiser advising the Minister for Independent Contractors has announced that new legislation will be introduced that requires Govt Departments pay small business and independent contractors within 30 days of invoice or be charged penalties and interest. I'm sure you will agree this is a most positive step with many small businesses often frustrated by the time it takes to receive payment. For more details see the original press release here.

For those of you not aware, the RCSA (Recruitment & Consulting Services Assn) produces an informative quarterly survey of industry metrics to assist members in representing business needs to Australian & NZ Governments. Lack of suitable candidates remains the top concern followed by finding suitable recruitment staff with the state of the economy now coming in at 3rd place. Issues of most concern by State are:

NSW: most concerned about state of the economy, financing growth and more concerned about employment legislation & OH&S issues
VIC: is more worried about financing growth and less concerned about the state of the economy and legal issues bout on-hired staff.
QLD: is less worried about financing growth, maintaining profits, price undercutting, industrial relations and OH&S issues
SA: is more worried about retaining and finding recruitment staff, maintaining profitability, industrial relations, workers compensation, employment legislation, legal issues about on=hired staff and immigration issues and less worried about financing growth
WA is more concerned about retaining suitable recruitment staff and less concerned with financing growth, restructuring industries, the cost of advertising, workers compensation, employment legislation and legal issues
NZ: is least worried about finding and retaining staff, price undercutting, the state of the economy and industrial relations and most worried bout lack of hiring intentions of client and restructuring industries.
The top 5 skills where biggest candidate shortages are experienced are: business professionals and non-building professional engineers, associates and technicians. These are followed by building professionals and electrical trades (building). Other trades also remain in short supply. The shortage of health professionals and nurses remains substantial as does the shortage of receptionists and telephonists. Visit our BLOG to get a more detailed breakdown of the December RCSA Survey.

Hope you all have a great month.

Deirdre Gruiters
Corporate Talent Agent

The Professional Edge Mar08

Link: http://www.collectivelearningaustralia.com/files/2008_aust_eb_summit1.pdf

Sydney 17 June 2008 - Melbourne 24 June 2008

How will your organisation develop an Employer Brand that keeps you ahead of the competition to attract, engage and retain talent in 2009 and beyond?

We invite you to join us at Australia's premier Employer Branding event.

Attend the 2008 Australian Employer Branding Summit to be held in Sydney on 17 June 2008 and Melbourne on 24 June 2008 to learn from leading Global and National employer brand specialists and companies who will share the latest in world's best practice Employer Brand strategy, design, implementation, communications and ROI assessment.

The Summit provides an ideal opportunity to get practical advice from employer brand specialists who partner with Top 100 companies and to learn the latest in world's best practice employer brand management. Each delegate receives a comprehensive toolkit including questionnaires, strategies and practical tips to guide your employer brand program on your return to the workplace.

aCE talentNET are proud to be associated with the Summit and are pleased to offer you a special bonus for delegates including a complimentary copy of the International best seller, Your Employer Brand attract-engage-retain by Brett Minchington and a copy of Brett's ASX150 Careers Website and Global Best Practice Guidelines Report - total value $288, until 25 May 08.

To redeem the special offer please enter "aCE talentNET" in the 'other attendees' section in the online booking form or at the top of page 2 of the registration form.

Register before 25/4/2008 and save $200.

Link: http://www.acetalentnet.com.au/enews/advantedgemar08.html

Leading Human Capital, Leading Organisation
July 22-24, 2008 - Jakarta Convention Centre, Jakarta Indonesia

The future success of any organisation is directly related to the capabilities, motivation and contribution of all its employees and the calibre of its leaders at all levels. Indeed, the one constant in today's challenging and changing business landscape is people – Human Capital.

Human Capital is the critical driver of organisational value as it is accepted that the only sustainable source of distinctive competitive advantage for organisations come from their human capital.

To build a great company, you need great people.
To attract and retain great people, you need to build the HR infrastructure that supports growth.
It represents the knowledge, skills and abilities that make it possible for people to do their jobs.

Human capital development is about recruiting, supporting and investing in people, using a variety of means, including education, training, coaching, mentoring, internships, organisational development and human resource management.

Asia HRD Congress™ 2008 is a forum for professionals around the world to share HRD practices.

To find out all about the congress, and the key learning tracks this year, click here...(.pdf 1.4mb)

As you may be aware, the RCSA produces a quarterly survey of industry metrics to assist the RCSA in representing business’ needs to Australian & New Zealand Governments.

The collated information of these surveys is released quarterly and made available generally — if you wish to review the information to date please see June, September and December.

The survey is conducted by Values Bank Research Centre and conforms to the international market research standard ICC/ESOMAR. As such, you can be assured of the utmost professionalism and discretion with your answers. The RCSA is only given the final report as you see them above.

Information such as these surveys always make for interesting reading... an example of such a key point is that one of the top 10 talent shortages listed in "Business Professionals"... as evidenced with our Talent NETwork, there are plenty of good ones around... you just need to know where to find them!

Link: http://blogs.smh.com.au/innovator/archives/2008/03/googles_nine_principles_of_inn.html?page=fullpage

via Kristen Le Mesurier
Everyone wonders how Google does it. Now a $145-billion company by market capitalisation, revenue has grown by over 50% every year since 2002.

Clever and motivated employees is a common guess. Another is the playground Google has created for adults - free gourmet food, an outdoor wave pool, an indoor gym, and those company scooters used to whiz around on between buildings. Great ideas are sure to follow all that freedom and hilarity, right?

It's true that these factors are part of the picture. After all, freedom has a lot to do with creativity and the ownership of ideas.

But the philosophies and systems operating under the surface are far more considered and methodical than all of that fun would have you believe.

Fast Company's website last week listed Google's nine principles of innovation and they touched on so many themes in and around innovation that I've been listening podcasts and presentations made by Google's innovation experts to fill in the detail.

1. Ideas come from everywhere

Unlike the heirarchical approach to running a business usually sees ideas come from the top down, Google expects everyone to have ideas - executives and employees, employees working for companies they have acquired, and users.

Four Australian engineers working for a company Google acquired came up with Google Maps, for example. And Google News was born when one employee, frustrated with having to trawl 15 news sites to get the best and most comprehensive information, built a clustering tool that automatically grouped links to a range fo news sources covering a particular subject on a single website. He then emailed the tool to Google in case it could be used internally, and Google picked it up to develop it further for users.

Google now has an internal ideas forum that encourages employees to post new ideas and throw them open to dissection and improvement to colleagues. This serves two purposes - the best ideas are voted on and quickly rise to the top of the list. Colleagues' comments also lead to new and better ideas that may have been missed.

2. Share as much information as you can

Before Google listed on the stock exchange, staff were told what revenue was every morning. Google's innovation guru, Marissa Mayer, says during this presentation that by giving clever, motivated employees almost unfettered access to information about the company they work for, their choices about what they work on and set out to achieve are much more informed. Duplication is minimised, collaboration is fostered, and they feel empowered and trusted.

3. Hire brilliant people

Tell prospective employees that you only hire the best. Google's experience has been that clever people drive and feed off each other. They set challenges that they may not think they have the capacity to meet on their own.

4. Pursue your dreams

Google's 20% time - the time granted to employees to work on projects that are a passion or personal interest.

Most business owners tend to say this is too expensive... lose 20% of productivity, 20% less would get done, it would be equivalent to a 25% pay rise.

Mayer says 20% time rarely works out that way. Few employees set aside Fridays to work on their pet projects. In reality, they'll spend two to three months working on a particular project then two weeks working on something they enjoy. Or they'll work on their pet projects on the weekends, or at night.

In any case, this trust pays off. In the final six months of 2005, 50% of Google's product launches came from 20% time. This means that Google employees produce two and a half times the output you'd expect given the amount of time they have to pursue these projects.

5. Innovation, not instant perfection.

It's a tough balancing act. Launch a product before it's perfect and be the first to market? or spend months polishing it and risk a thud when you eventually launch?

Google's learned that it's innovation, not perfection, that works best. Its strategy, 'launch early and often' gives Google the opportunity to test the idea on the market before months or years has been spent refining a product that the market might not want. It uses the market's reaction to refine the product straight away.

6. Data is A-political

There's nothing worse than working for an organisation where politics determines promotions and whose ideas are picked up. Google doesn't touch an idea without the data that proves it's worth pursuing.

7. Creativity loves constraints

This sounds counter-intuitive, but total freedom can be intimidating. For example, when when writing, scribble a few (less than perfect) sentences on the page straight away and use those as a starting point. If you pen in some constraints it's easier to think your way creatively out of that box.

8. It's about customers, not money

Google insists that if it focuses on products that draw users, the money will follow. This works well for online businesses, particularly because advertisers follow users.

9. Don't kill projects, morph them

How do you know which products to cull and which to keep refining? Google reasons that if the ideas have made it through their filtering process, they are strong enough to have a place somehwere in the business and shouldn't be culled. Remember that someone got excited about it for a reason.

The list provides more of an idea of how Google has built an entrepreneurial spirit, both on a macro level and on the smaller project level, so that you can pinch the best strategies and morph them to suit your business. Tried any of these lately?...